Saving Mrs Morgan
by foreverHenry919
Summary: I do not own "Forever" TV show or any of its characters.
1. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 1 A Crime

**Author's Notes**: This story is set at the end of the season finale, "The Last Death of Henry Morgan". But for the sake of my own sanity and concentration, I thought of abandoning the original timeline and making the events occur now but ... no ... scratch that. That episode aired May 2015 so we begin there.

vvvv

Det. Jo Martinez stood at the entrance of the antiques shop where her enigmatic, unofficial partner, Dr. Henry Morgan, lived with his elderly roommate, Abe. Through the large display window and glass door, she had seen the two men in a battle of wits over a game of chess, as they often liked to be. At that moment, though, she felt she was in a battle of wits with the secretive ME after she'd handed his pocket watch to him and he'd claimed it had been stolen. Now she held up an aged, black-and-white polaroid photo of a smiling couple with a baby. The man in the photo held a striking resemblance to Henry. Who were the woman and baby, though?

"I, um, also found this," she had told him. She stared intensely at him as his fake but dazzling smile faded and quiet panic overtook his expression. And something else she saw that looked like ... relief.

While she, Henry, and Abe stood at the door, the shop's landline phone rang. Abe left to answer it but not before saying "Tell her" to Henry.

"It's a long story," he finally replied to her.

She opened her mouth to tell him that however long it was, she was ready to listen but she never got the chance. Her phone rang and she reluctantly retrieved it from her pocket and answered what was a call from her official partner, Det. Mike Hanson.

At the same time, a frantic Abe nearly shouted, "Henry! Henry! You gotta take this call!", shaking the phone's receiver as he held it out to him in a two-fisted grip.

Henry looked uncertainly from Jo to Abe then back at Jo. He conveyed an apologetic look to her and hurriedly went to take the receiver from Abe. The look of concern on Abe's face and Henry's brow furrowing deeper, drew Jo further into the shop as she gathered the information from Mike about a homicide. As she drew closer to them, Henry glanced at her and she could see the color draining from his worried face.

"Yes," he told the caller. "We'll be there as soon as we can." He hung up the phone the same time that she ended her own call and he hurried over to the coat rack to grab his coat and scarf, putting them on.

"That was Mike," she told him. "We got a body. Who was that?" she asked. The looks on their faces were beginning to alarm her.

"A friend," Abe quietly replied. He appeared to be too troubled to provide any further information.

"What's going on, Henry? Is Abe's friend all right?" she asked as Henry rejoined them.

"No, she isn't," Henry replied. His worried expression spoke volumes. "There's been a murder."

vvvv

Jo and Henry rode mostly in silence in her car from the shop to what turned out to be the same crime scene they had been apprised of by their respective calls. Crime scene. To Henry, those two words, unfortunately, seemed to fit quite well with Abe's two-times ex-wife, Maureen Delacroix. She had never struck him as being the vicious, murderous type. Just one who may have allowed her emotions to overtake her rational train of thought like when she'd shot Abe (accidentally, Abe had always maintained). Still, it dismayed him to have to finally meet her face to face in his official capacity as Chief Medical Examiner at a crime scene involving her.

The worry and anxiety for her had been etched into his son's face and he hated to have left him back at the shop instead of taking him with them. Even though he had more misgivings than his son did about his former daughter-in-law, they both still wondered how she could have managed to get herself in the middle of something as dire as this. But Abe firmly believed that it was all just some kind of misunderstanding (again) and everything would be cleared up in no time.

Neither Jo nor Henry, though, was able to totally push their earlier, interrupted conversation at the shop out of their minds. Jo's unanswered questions were lodged in her throat, making it difficult for her to utter very much about whatever was really going on with Henry. Maureen was another matter. And in her capacity as a detective, she would seek some concrete answers.

Henry, on the other hand, found the silence a welcome breath-catching moment before what he knew would be an intense question-and-answer period. But he knew that he would ... should ... eventually satisfy her curiosity with honest answers. Would she believe them, though? A huffing sound escaped him and he shook his head, frustrated with himself for his own cowardice regarding sharing his secret with anyone other than Abe. If he had somehow found the courage to tell her before this, maybe she wouldn't have become so angry and frustrated with him. Maybe she would have believed him, accepted him. Maybe by now, they would have -

"Henry, do you know anything about Abe's friend? Her lifestyle, friends. In your opinion, would she be capable of killing someone?" she asked, swallowing her frustration over not being able to question him about his own mystery. "Abe looked really upset."

Did he know anything about Maureen? He unpursed his lips before reluctantly replying, "She's actually his ex-wife."

Jo gasped and glanced over at him, then back at the road in front of her. "Wow, um, I never knew he'd been married."

"Twice, as a matter of fact," he told her. "Both times to her." He unwillingly gave in to a smile when he saw her eyes widen in surprise and amusement.

A chuckle left her and she asked, "Are they still married?"

"No. They're also divorced - twice," he replied, bracing himself for her reaction.

"Well, I've heard of people remarrying the person they had previously divorced but ... divorced twice, married twice?" she asked, amazed.

He calmed his features and sighed before speaking again. "Jo, this has really upset him."

She nodded as they arrived at their destination and parked. "That was pretty obvious." She turned off the car and said, "He must still have feelings for her."

"Yes," he replied. Personally, he'd always felt that Abe could do better than the flamboyant woman who regarded her small derringer as more of a bejeweled cap pistol rather than the deadly weapon it really was. Whatever his own thoughts or feelings were about the woman, it was clear that Abe still held her in special regard. "Hopefully, we can get to the bottom of things quickly and reveal the truth behind it all."

"Hmmm. The truth," Jo replied, side-eyeing him. "Always the best thing," she added, causing him to cringe.

They were in front of the upscale Barclay Hotel on East 48th Street. After parking the car, they spotted Maureen being examined by an EMT. As they drew closer, they were both shocked at the amount of blood on her expensive-looking, blue-sequined evening dress and velvet jacket. Jo shot a sideways worried look at Henry then back at Maureen. It was important to keep her cool and question this woman, special to Abe, as she normally would.

As Henry drew closer, he noticed something very telling about the placement of the blood on her clothing. Although aware of Jo's worried glance at him, he remained focused on Maureen. They both were surprised but thankful to see Hanson, dressed in a much nicer suit than he usually wore to the office, already on the scene. Hanson walked over to them and shared his concerns in a lowered voice.

"Guess I'm a witness or something," he told them.

"Witness?" Henry asked. "What did you see?"

Hanson inhaled deeply and let it out before replying. "Karen and I hadn't long been seated at our table. Not often we get out, just the two of us," he began. "Right after we ordered, she (motioning to Maureen) walked by with a man later identified as our victim, Durwood Scanlon." He dipped his head toward a body a few feet away on the sidewalk covered with a black tarp.

"They arrived shortly after you did?" Jo asked.

"No, they were leaving," Hanson replied. "I was able to catch her attention and they stopped at our table. Seemed like a nice couple like they were happy to be with each other."

"Just being friendly or did you or your wife know either of them?" Jo asked.

"Maureen _Delacroix_," Hanson spread his hands as he replied as if that was all he needed to say. "She's a _legend_."

Henry knew about her career in the early 1960s when she and her two older sisters sang in a girl group called the Candy Canes. A bit before Jo's time, though, he realized. Hanson's time, too, for that matter, and he was surprised to learn that Hanson was obviously a fan of hers.

"Of course, I wasn't aware of them that much when I was growing up," Hanson explained, "but after their music was used in that 90s movie about the kid who fell off the whale-watching boat and turned into a dolphin, there was a resurgence in their popularity."

"I know that movie," Jo said, her mouth hanging open a bit. "I always felt kinda sorry for him, though. Falling into the water and drowning, dying, actually. Then being transformed into a fish." She shuddered at the thought. Both she and Hanson appeared oblivious to the slight look of startled dismay that passed briefly over Henry's face.

Would she feel sorry for him if she learned of his own transformation? Would she also shudder in disgust? Her voice cut into his troubled thoughts.

"Before you say anything, Henry, I know that dolphins are mammals - not fish." He mutely nodded with a lip-pressed smile.

"So the music in that movie ... that was her singing those songs?" she asked, not caring which of them supplied the answer.

"Along with her two older sisters," Henry contributed. "But we mustn't appear starstruck when we question her. We still have a victim to whom she's well connected."

Jo and Hanson sighed, nodding in agreement. "Did there appear to be any tension between Scanlon and her?" she asked Hanson.

"No," Hanson replied. "Like I said, they appeared to be real happy with each other."

"No sign of any tension between them, then," Henry stated more than asked.

"Nah, nah," Hanson quickly replied. "Well ... maybe not bad tension, if you know what I mean," he added, lowering his voice and raising an eyebrow. "Like they were on their way to find a private place to, uh, release said tension."

Henry chose to ignore the insinuation, instead remaining focused on Maureen. "Did you or your wife hear anything, any screams, or sounds of a fight or argument after the couple had left the hotel's ground-floor restaurant?" he asked Hanson.

"Screams, yeah, lots of 'em," he replied. "I ran outside in the direction of the screams and found the vic on the ground bleeding to death from a bullet to the head," he said, tapping his index finger to the center of his forehead.

"Where was she?" Jo asked.

"Crouched over him. Said she was giving him CPR," he replied.

"Obviously, it didn't do any good," Jo dryly remarked.

"Kneeling down over him to give him CPR would account for how the blood had gotten onto her clothing," he surmised.

The EMT removed the blood pressure gauge from Maureen's arm, packed it away, and stood up just as the two detectives and their ME walked up. Maureen sat at the back of the emergency vehicle with dried tears on her pale, dazed face. She raised sorrowful eyes up to look at the three of them, her gaze meeting Henry's.

"You're Henry," she said in a soft voice of clipped, British English. "We finally meet. How is your father?"

Jo and Hanson exchanged a wide-eyed look of surprise and then slowly slid their eyes over to Henry, anxiously awaiting his response.

He gulped before he finally replied, "If you're referring to Abraham, he's fine although quite concerned about you - but he's not my father. My father died a long time ago." At least that was the truth, he told himself, noting the looks of slight disappointment on Jo's and Hanson's faces - although they were both happy to get even that little crumb of information out of Henry - and the slight scowl of confusion on Maureen's.

"That old dog! I always thought that you were his son!" she hissed.

Doing his best to ignore the curious looks from Jo and Hanson, he gulped again before replying. "We've ... known each other for so long that sometimes he treats me that way." That was actually true. There were times when he'd sought advice and comfort from his more worldly son.

He hoped that the flimsy explanation may have put a sock in any further questions about his relationship with the elderly man. His son. Although forced to lie from time to time in order to keep the secret of his condition, it always left him feeling guilty. And this half-truth troubled him even more because Jo had heard it; he hadn't wanted to add more to the web of lies he'd already woven for her.

"Oh. My mistake." Maureen shuddered a tired breath in and out and sniffled. "Poor Woody. Poor Woody."

"I assume you're referring to Mr. Scanlon, the victim," Jo said. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"We ... we were standing and ... waiting for a cab," she told them. "Well, he was hailing for one and I was signing an autograph for a fan."

"A fan," Jo repeated. "Where is this fan? Maybe they saw something, too?"

"Oh, I, I don't know," Maureen replied. "There was a gunshot and everything happened so fast!" She let out a frustrated sigh but continued. "All I could think of was to help Woody. He was bleeding so much!" She looked up at Henry again and said, "First I tried pressure to stop the bleeding, then CPR. Abe taught me, bless his soul. Said he'd learned a lot of things like that from his father, who was a doctor, I suppose."

Henry felt an unexpected swell of pride when she mentioned that. He'd often wondered if his son had really paid attention to those mini-medical lessons.

Jo, on the other hand, mentally filed that little tidbit away about Abe, in many ways nearly as mysterious as his roommate, Henry. A doctor, she thought to herself, glancing at Henry. What a coincidence. She turned her thoughts back to Maureen, now sobbing.

"Nothing I did helped!" Her sobs consumed her as she looked helplessly down at her blood-stained hands.

It was obvious to them that she and Scanlon had shared much more than just friendship. Their sorrow for her, however, was less important than the questions they needed to ask her. Time was of the essence in any investigation.

Henry moved closer to Maureen then sat down next to her. "Abe is very concerned about you right now," he quietly told her. "And I'm truly sorry for the loss of your friend, Mr. Scanlon. Is there anything else you can share that might help us catch his killer?"

Maureen chuckled nervously and wryly noted, "I thought that I was pegged as his killer. That's the way I've been being treated so far."

"There are witnesses to confirm that the shot came from a passing car," he said. "The nature of his wound indicates also that he was shot from a distance." Because of her fragile emotional state, he chose not to elaborate any further.

Jo stepped forward and told her that her clothing would have to be surrendered as evidence and that she would have to submit to DNA testing.

"Of course," Maureen replied, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I've seen enough crime shows to know that."

vvvv

"Interesting," Henry said as he leaned over the stainless steel table on which the blood-stained dress and evening jacket lay that Maureen had worn when Scanlon had been murdered the night before.

Lucas covered a yawn and apologized. "Sorry, Doc. Didn't get much sleep last night."

"Hot date?" Henry asked, still giving most of his concentration to the blood-stained clothing.

"I wish," Lucas chuckled wryly. "Worried about if I would still be working here or not after ... " his voice trailed off.

Henry straightened up and cast a concerned but grateful look at him. "After you defied Det. Martinez's order not to give me the pugio." Lucas nodded and Henry sighed.

"I have yet to properly thank you for that," Henry quietly admitted to him. "And I must apologize for having put your job and livelihood in jeopardy."

"Figured if it was that important to you," Lucas said, shrugging, "then it was important that I should get it to you. Hope everything worked out okay." It was more of a question. By now, he had hoped that his very learned boss had spilled the beans about the significance of the pugio and where he'd taken it to that night. _'Just a bean or two, Big Guy, to help crack the code on you?' _

"It was important," Henry confirmed. "And everything worked out much better than expected." He genuinely wished he could tell the young man more. But he felt that Jo should be first to hear any of his long story.

Turning his attention back to the clothing, he told Lucas to get the samples they'd taken from it over to the lab. Lucas left with the samples just as Jo and Hanson entered the morgue, exchanging greetings with him and Henry.

"What can you tell us about this?" Hanson asked, eyeing the blood-stained clothing.

"Well, as you can see, it's pretty obvious that there is a great deal of the victim's blood on it," Henry replied.

"Uh, yeah," Hanson said in a half-smirk. "Obvious."

Henry chuckled and dipped his head before explaining further that the stains were consistent with someone having knelt in a pool of blood and leaned over Scanlon's bloody body.

"See, if she had been standing in front of him - "

"Which she wasn't, according to eye witness accounts that back up her story," Jo said, interrupting him.

"Quite correct," Henry concurred. "The initial impact of the bullet into his skull would have caused a massive out spurt of bleeding that would have hit her squarely - " He abruptly stopped, noticing how queasy both Jo and Hanson looked. "My apologies, detectives, for the graphic nature of the description of the victim's fatal wound. If you prefer not to hear them, the details will be in my report."

"No, it's, uh ... " Hanson shook his head and flopped a hand up then down. "No matter how gruesome, you always seem to describe things with no more emotion than if you were reading the contents off the side of a box of cereal."

"Just doing my job by trying to explain that the immediate blood loss would have stained her clothing in a different pattern if she had been standing closer to him and had fired the shot that killed him," Henry explained while trying not to appear so defensive. "And no trace of gunshot residue was found on either her or her clothing." He looked at them both and stated, "Maureen was not the shooter."

"Doesn't mean that she didn't set him up," Jo proposed. When met with the looks of disappointment on both men's faces, she said, "Just throwin' it out there. Certainly something that we have to consider."

"Surveillance camera footage is being rounded up as we speak," Hanson said, not liking what he was hearing from Jo but reluctantly agreeing that she was right. "We should be able to start goin' over them this afternoon."

Moving a few feet over to the corpse of the victim stretched out on a stainless steel autopsy table, foursome took up positions on either side with the detectives on one side and the MEs on the other. Henry explained the obvious to them beginning with the entry wound and the resultant damage the bullet had done.

"We were able to extract a .22 caliber bullet from the wound," Henry told them.

"A small caliber handgun?" Jo asked Henry.

"That is correct, Detective," he replied.

"About a million registered to gun owners in New York alone," Hanson wryly stated.

"The fingerprints we lifted from the bullet might help to narrow it down to one specific owner," Henry proudly informed them, hands clasped in front of him as he rolled his shoulders back. Lucas, back from the lab, opened a folder and took out two photos of the fingerprints and handed one to Hanson and one to Jo.

"Well, this ought to speed things up for us," Jo said as she and Hanson studied both photos. Hanson took both photos and said he'd go run them.

"Thanks, Doc," he said as he left the morgue.

"We were on our way over to Ms. Delacroix's hotel to question her again," Jo told Henry after he instructed Lucas to package the clothing back up. "Looks like my official partner is gonna be a little busy for a while. Would my unofficial partner wanna come along? I mean especially since she's so close to Abe."

No, he didn't want to come along for just that reason. But he reluctantly agreed to since he had promised his son that he would do all he could to help solve this case. "Please. Lead the way, Detective," he told her with an outstretched arm.

His smile was a little too forced to Jo but she chalked it up to the uneasiness behind their interrupted conversation prior to receiving the call about this case. She felt that she'd been patient long enough and it was fading fast although she was trying her hardest to remain focused on their latest case. What in the world could her unofficial partner be hiding? And would any revelations lead to charges being brought against him? She sincerely hoped not. Especially after having covered for Lucas and him only a few hours before she'd shown up at the shop.

Certain things she'd done in the past in an effort to protect Henry and those close to him now threatened to come back and bite her in the butt. Such as when she'd omitted from her report that Henry had dared the gas station owner, Ryan Morris, to shoot him instead of her in the Tyler Forrester murder investigation. And the Jason Fox murder investigation found her once again lying to Reece and falsifying her report. Henry had deliberately stepped in front of not one but two speeding cars in an attempt to catch a suspect. But her report indicated that he was inadvertently in the path of both cars. At the time she had concluded that he had been trying to make up for having killed Clarke Walker several weeks earlier. But even divulging that to Lt. Reece may have put a halt to him joining her in field investigations. So she'd covered for him. And she was doing it again now about the pugio. She sincerely hoped that he would clear the air with her about that soon to keep them both out of some deep doo-doo.

The steering wheel in her tight grip began to feel moist from the sweat on her palms. As much as she was trying to stay focused on the current case, it was becoming harder and harder to contain the anger, frustration, and hurt that had built up inside -

"Jo! Truck!" Henry yelled, startling her out of her thoughts. She instinctively slammed on the brakes and the car came to a stop within inches of the 18-wheeler in front of them. They both took a few moments to collect themselves. "Perhaps I should drive," Henry breathlessly suggested. He didn't want her anger-fueled, distracted driving to cause either of them to get seriously injured or lose their lives.

"You're not authorized to drive this vehicle," she replied and resumed driving once the truck in front of them began moving again. "Just like you weren't authorized to have that pugio from Evidence Lockup yesterday."

Her words stung but he knew that she was right. And even though she had also been right when she'd told him in the middle of the museum yesterday that she deserved the truth, the time was simply not right for that conversation. He really did want her to know the truth about him. Everything. But they had to first concentrate on solving this murder case involving Abe's ex-wife, Maureen.

"Jo, I can understand your frustration with wanting answers from me about the photograph, about the pugio, but - "

"It's a story for another time, right?" she dryly remarked, interrupting. "Isn't that what you always like to say?" She brought the car to a stop, parking it in front of Maureen's hotel on Park Avenue.

vvvv

They'd entered the hotel and ridden the elevator up to the 30th floor mostly in silence. Now they took turns questioning Maureen as they sat in the seating area of her luxury hotel room. Three, large, floor-to-ceiling windows spanned the length of the side wall providing breathtakingly panoramic views of the city. Maureen, freshly showered and wearing white, silk pajamas and quilted dressing gown with pink fur trim on the cuffs and collar, sat in an armchair across from Henry and Jo, who sat on the couch.

"We were wrapping up negotiations for our next several tour dates and the taping of a PBS special," she told them. "We also had plans to take a vacation before the tour began. And just like that - everything's turned to ashes."

Her face, freshly scrubbed and devoid of any makeup, was remarkably unlined for a woman of her perceived age. Her cheekbones and jawline were still as well-defined as a woman half her age. The only real signs that pointed to a septuagenarian existence were the sagging and protruding vertical neck muscle bands or turkey neck, and the wrinkles on her hands. Great strides had been made over the years in plastic surgery, Henry noted, so that face and neck lifts had become easier to perform. They had even become so routine that even those with tighter purse strings and smaller purses could afford them - on credit. But not much progress had been made in minimizing the wrinkles on a person's hands.

Nevertheless, she still had the regal bearing of a queen holding court. Under the weight of her grief, she sat straight and tall in her chair. Her long, red mane held the fragrance of honey and lavender as it draped over her right shoulder. Having stepped into backless slippers, she sat with one leg over the other. Her red-painted toenails peeked out from under bands of pink fur. Shoulders squared and chin out, her hands gripped the arms of her chair as if propelling herself past this emotional upset, ready to upright her throne of life back onto its solid foundation.

"Had he quarreled with anyone recently?" Henry asked. "Received any threatening phone calls, emails, or letters?"

"Oh, always," Maureen replied, waving a hand dismissively. "There are always differences of opinions to be dealt with to keep this rocker on the roll. It goes with the territory, this life of entertainment. This business of entertainment. It's called creative differences. I hardly believe that anyone we've ever dealt with would kill him over a difference of opinion on a production number or which guest spots were best for promos when hitting the talk show circuit." She flung the music business jargon around like it was nothing. But they were, surprisingly, able to keep up.

"We'll still need to interview everyone in your, um, entourage just to rule them out," Jo said. The older woman sighed and nodded. "Including former employees. Especially those who left under less than amicable circumstances. Also, if you could supply us with a list of people Mr. Scanlon may have had disagreements with, that would be helpful, too," she added.

"Paul can provide you with all of that information," Maureen told her. "Paul Scofield. He's ... he's my manager," she clarified and closed her eyes, touching her fingers to her forehead.

"Where can we reach him?" Jo asked.

Maureen pointed to the shiny, black, baby grand piano near the panoramic windows. "He left some new business cards he'd just had printed," she said. "On top of the sheet music," she told Henry as he went to retrieve a couple.

"We thought that Mr. Scanlon was your manager," Henry said as he pocketed one business card and handed the other to Jo.

"No, no, he was my ... " She laughed nervously, tilting her head to the side as if calling up fond memories. "My inspiration. My breath of life. He helped me to stay above the petty squabbles of the production and PR staffs." The tinge of mirth left her and her shoulders drooped a bit. "Suppose I should have paid more attention to who had daggers in their eyes," she muttered.

"We'll let ourselves out, Ms. Delacroix. And ... sorry for your loss," Jo told her. She thanked her, they all stood up, and Maureen followed them to the door anyway.

"You know, my instincts are usually pretty spot on," Maureen said as Henry stepped into the hallway to join Jo. He turned to her with raised eyebrows in anticipation of her next statement. "All the years I've known Abe, I'd begun to suspect that you were his son from the way he talked about you - the few times that he did. I was certain that you and he were father and son."

Henry nodded, pursing his lips as she closed the door. Feeling the need to escape Jo's inquiring eyes, he motioned toward the elevator at the end of the hallway and they began heading for it. Jo frowned curiously as she walked in front of him and just as they reach the elevator, Henry reached from behind her and punched the call button. They entered the elevator and Henry worked hard not to squirm and gulp under Jo's raised eyebrow glare. Neither of them said a word and Jo exited the elevator first when it arrived at the lobby level and the doors opened. She strode toward the building's exit, her thick curls bouncing with each determined step. She eyed him warily as they got into her assigned vehicle. He just barely managed to buckle up before she screeched away from the curb into traffic. He recalled what Hanson had told him when he'd noticed Jo's upset state during the case involving the pugio.

_"Whatever you did to tick her off, Doc, just apologize and quick. Believe me, it doesn't get better from here." _

Notes:

Slight references to "Forever" 2014-2015 TV show episodes

S01/E07 New York Kids; S01/E11 Skinny Dipper; S01/E12 The Wolves of Deep Brooklyn; and S01/E22 The Last Death of Henry Morgan.


	2. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 2 The Reveal

After reaching voicemail on Scofield's phone for a third time, Henry tried the other number on the card. He dialed it using Jo's cell phone and someone answered immediately. Jo had already once instructed him how to place a call on speaker so he did that and they identified themselves and the reason for their call. The person at the other end, Scofield's secretary, advised them to call his private number.

"We were unable to reach him at that number. Is there another way to reach him?" Jo spoke, taking over the call.

_("No, but I'd be happy to fax the information to you.") _

"Well, we don't give our fax number out to the general public," Jo replied. "Could we come by and pick it up?"

_("Sure. Anytime.") _

"Thanks. We're on our way," Jo said. The car lurched through another intersection beating the light.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Jo, slow down, please," Henry urged her. "Now, I understand that you'd like to kick a certain someone's butt - mine - with that lead foot of yours right now, but if you don't mind, I'd like to live long enough to get home tonight!" Sans a swim in the river.

Jo smiled apologetically at him. "Sorry." She looked over at him and said, "Just ... a lot on my mind right now." She surprised and relieved him with a slight smile.

He returned her smile but Hanson's previous advice repeated in his mind: _'Just apologize and quick.' _Good advice that he intended to act on as soon as possible.

Another two blocks and they arrived at Scofield's office on East 54th Street and Lexington Avenue. They parked in the parking garage, thankful that the clang and clamor of ongoing construction work across the street was now somewhat muted. While they rode the elevator up to the 22nd floor, Jo asked a rhetorical question.

"Why does everybody have to live and work in the stratosphere nowadays?"

"Perching one's self above the masses gives one a sense of superiority, false as it may be," Henry responded anyway in a wistful manner, his hands clasped behind his back as his eyes roamed up and around. "Opens one up to a new level of thinking, of expanded creativity, I've also heard. However," he continued as they exited the elevator, "in the days before elevators, the privileged few paid more money to occupy the lower levels with the less fortunate relegated to the cheaper, upper levels."

"Can't say I'm really up for another of your lectures, Henry," she admitted, "but that just sounds mean. Making poor people walk up a ton of floors so the fat cats could claim the lucky spots."

"It's the way it was, Detective," Henry replied matter-of-factly. The filth and squalor that most of the poor people were forced to endure was horrendous. In winter, many of them froze to death for lack of heat if they didn't wilt and die of heat stroke or heart attacks in the sweltering summer heat. Accidents, crime, and other diseases took an astounding toll on others. The faces of those unfortunate ones presented themselves one after the other in his memory. The many calls he'd answered in his capacity as a doctor had wrenched at his heart, his sense of decency recoiling from both the economic and emotional despair.

"You make it sound like you were actually there," she half-joked as they approached Scofield's office.

Henry coughed into his fist to clear his throat. "I am, ah, quite the history buff," he managed to say as they walked through the doors of Scofield's music management office.

They were met with the sight of a reception area replete with sleek, modern furnishings and accessories. A grey sectional with white cushions and the rectangular ottoman doing double duty as the coffee table, graced the corner to their left. The three, floor-to-ceiling windows provided a spectacular view of the city below. But again, as when they had been in Maureen's hotel room, there was little time to enjoy it. They approached the oak wood reception desk in the shape of a half circle but found no one in the chair on the other side of it. They looked briefly to each other for how to proceed before hearing a piercing scream coming from the hallway. As they raced in that direction, they nearly collided with a hysterical, bespectacled woman in her mid-50s with her hair pulled back tightly in a mingly gray and blonde bun.

"Oh, it's awful, just awful," she whispered in a shaky voice with her hands raised and shaking, as well.

Henry helped her into the reception area and sat her down on the sofa. He looked behind the reception desk and spotted a few bottles of water reserved for guests. He plucked one of them up and opened it for her, placing it into her hands. She sipped from it and handed it back to him. Her tears were flowing freely and she continued to moan that it was awful, just awful.

"Tell me what happened to upset you so," Henry gently asked.

"I didn't know he was there," she replied tearfully. "But he must have been there all along."

"Who must have been there? Where?" he asked.

She swallowed and blinked as her tears continued to flow. "Paul, my boss, he's ... in the men's restroom ... dead." She paused to catch her breath and Henry told her to take her time. "I ... arrived for work at 8:00 on the dot as usual," she emphasized. "He usually comes in around 9 or 10, depending on his morning appointments with whatever client. But ... he must have come in even before me. Or, or stayed late from last night, I don't know." She sobbed again and struggled to compose herself before continuing. "He's dead. Someone killed him! Paul is dead and, and he must have been there all along while I was ... schlumping around out here, thinking he'd be here soon and ... "

"And what?" Henry asked.

"Wanting to ask him for the afternoon off for my granddaughter's soccer match." She threw up both hands and laughed mirthlessly. "Well, looks like I can have all the afternoons off from now until forever." He handed her a box of kleenex he'd also plucked from behind the reception desk. She snatched several of them out of the box and buried her face in them. Henry stood up just as he heard Jo's voice in the hallway.

"Henry, you'd better come look at this."

vvvv

"Male, caucasion, 56 years of age, cause of death: exsanguination as a result of the head wound," Henry reported to Jo and Hanson as they stood on opposite sides of the stainless steel table with Paul Scofield's body on it.

"This man was murdered," Hanson wryly remarked, stealing Henry's line.

"Do you have a time of death?" Jo asked Henry but with her eyes averted downward to Scofield's body which didn't go unnoticed by Hanson and Lucas.

"Approximately between 11:30 PM and 12:15 PM, based on the amount of blood loss and the temperature of his inner body core," he replied. Jo merely nodded. Giving up on making eye contact with her, he looked over at Hanson, who furrowed his brow at him while quickly darting his eyes a couple of times to Jo and back to him. He straightened up and schooled his features when Jo looked over at him.

"Schoolboy shenanigans over, I hope," she wryly remarked, closing up her notepad. Armed with the documentation from Scofield's secretary and information about his demise, Jo said, "Let's go find out if there is a connection between the deaths of these two men so closely associated with Maureen Delacroix."

"I can tell you one connection," Lucas said to all of their surprise. Although reveling briefly in the limelight, he backed off a bit by saying, "Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I mean - "

"Lucas," Henry interrupted. "What is the connection?"

"Look, any fan of hers knows that she was once married to this guy," he said, pointing to Scofield's corpse. "In the 90s."

"Right," Hanson drew out. "Right after she got popular again they got married and he became her manager. How could I have forgotten that? But she and Scanlon were never married."

"Yeah, but they were _engaged_. He was gonna be hub #5," Lucas replied. "My folks are huge fans of hers especially since my Mom once sang backup for her during one of her tour dates here in New York in the 90s."

"Your mother?" Jo asked, pleasantly surprised.

"Yeah, you know, she was able to get the gig through the musician's registry," Lucas explained. "Contrary to what a lot of people might believe, singers don't always tour with the same set of backup singers and musicians. They get some of 'em along the way. Cheaper like that," he added.

The wheels in Henry's head began to turn in a most troubling way as he pulled off his gloves and dispensed with them. He began to pull off his lab coat as he pondered out loud. "So, according to your theory, Scanlon would have been husband #5. Scofield had been husband #4." He didn't like where this was leading him. "That means husband #3 - " His eyes widened in horror as he spun around and marched into his office. Grabbing up the desk phone's receiver, he punched the speed dial for the antiques shop. When it went to voicemail, he slammed the receiver back into its cradle and uncharacteristically ignoring his scarf, yanked his jacket off of the coat rack, arming into it as he marched then jogged out of the morgue.

"What's got him all worked up?" Hanson asked.

"Abe used to be married to Maureen," Jo told him. She took off after Henry and Hanson took off after her.

Left alone with Scofield's body on the autopsy table, Lucas slowly drew the sheet up over its face. He turned to routine and began taking the body back to the cooler to get his mind off of the fact that Abe could be their newest unlive patient.

vvvv

Henry jumped out of Jo's car without waiting for her to properly park it. He rushed into the shop bellowing his son's name, Jo and Hanson filing in behind him. "Abraham! Abraham, are you here?!"

"I'm here, I'm here," he replied as he emerged from the basement and closed the trap door. Henry rushed up to him and hugged him tightly. "What's all the fuss?" Abe asked, patting his back.

Henry released the hug and caught his breath. "You didn't answer the phone when I called."

"Went down into the basement to test out the new wall safe and knocked one of the specimen jars over; had to clean it up," he told him, shrugging.

"I was so worried when you didn't pick up," Henry said still trying to calm his breathing, fear giving way to relief on his face.

"Sorry," Abe told him again. As if seeing Jo and Hanson for the first time, he stated, "There's something else. All three of you wouldn't have rushed over here if it weren't real important."

"Yes, there is something else," Henry admitted. "Let's go upstairs, shall we?"

vvvv

Hanson left the shop after he and Jo had questioned Abe about his past relationship with Maureen and had informed him that the deaths of her ex-husband, Scofield, and her fiancee, Scanlon, appeared to be the work of the same killer. Although both detectives had been invited to stay for dinner, only Jo had accepted because she was willing to insert a lull in their investigation so she could get some answers out of her two hosts. Hanson nudged Henry again with a look behind Jo's back before he'd left.

While Jo took in the evening breeze on the rooftop terrace, Henry and Abe prepared the meal in the kitchen.

"It's hopeless," Henry said with a sigh as he pulled off his coat and hung it up. Out of habit, he then reached up to remove his scarf before remembering that he'd left it at the office.

"You mean she's goin' down for murder?!" a disappointed Abe asked.

"Wha - no, Abe. I meant ... " He sighed again while rolling up his sleeves and washing his hand. "Sorry if I upset you. No, Maureen did not kill these two men. You needn't worry about that." Now standing by the cutting board, he selected a knife from out of the wooden knife block.

Abe heaved a deep sigh of relief then furrowed his brow, eyeing his father as he chopped the vegetables almost absentmindedly. "That's good to know," he said. "But when you said 'hopeless' you were referring to ... "

Henry nodded deeply, pursing his lips. "Yes. The situation with Jo." He suddenly patted his shirt pocket underneath his vest.

"She still has it," Abe said plaintively, referring to the aged photo of him when he was a baby with his beaming parents. "She was gonna figure it out, Dad. Glad you decided to tell her rather than make her do all that digging. Would have just made her madder at you," he pointed out.

"Hanson said something similar earlier today," Henry said. Sensing Abe's question, he quickly told him, "No. He doesn't know about me. He does have eyes and ears although one doesn't need to be a detective to see that Jo is upset with me about something."

Abe eyed his father for a moment then put his hand on his father's wrist to quiet his chopping. "Go to her now. I'll finish up here. Go," he urged him again.

Henry rolled his eyes but with a soft smile relinquished the knife to him. "You're right. I'll go get the ball rolling, as they say. If I don't come clean with her and soon, she probably won't want me to go out into the field with her anymore. And we've got to find a killer who may have plans to make you their next victim."

"Oh. Okay. So that's the only reason you wanna stay on her good side, right?" Abe deadpanned, knowing the answer already. As ominous as it sounded, that he could be some psycho's next murder victim, he wanted his father to also acknowledge another reason for wanting to keep helping Jo solve crimes.

Henry chastised him with a squinty-eyed scowl before climbing the stairs to the terrace. He found her at the edge of the terrace looking out over the city and sipping from a half-empty glass of wine. Pausing for a moment to watch her as she gazed up at the sky, he was reminded again of just how beautiful she was. Bands of yellow, orange, and red were the last remnants of sunset gently releasing their hold on the darkening sky. Hands shoved down into his trouser pants, he walked up and stood beside her.

"Good you're here. Hate to drink alone. It's beautiful up here," she said. Her large brown eyes roamed over the cityscape, eventually finding his. It was so easy for them to get lost in each other's eyes. When had that happened? The first time she could recall was in his office right after he'd told her how to wander the streets with someone special and get lost in Paris. And later on that same night in the shop when she had come to tell him that she'd rather wander and get lost with him instead of Isaac Monroe. This wasn't the time for any of that, though, she told herself, pushing her emotions aside.

"It is beautiful up here," he told her. "Especially with you gracing us with your presence."

"That's ... really corny, Henry," she told him despite the fact that they both knew she was blushing.

"Yes, I suppose it is," he replied. But he was relieved and gratified to see a smile working its way across her face. Encouraged, he felt it was best to dive right in and begin his long story.

"I would like very much to continue our conversation that was interrupted earlier. Your questions about the, ah ... "

"The photo," she said, finishing for him.

He closed his eyes, pausing for a breath. "Yes." He paused again then suggested that they sit down at the table.

"Henry ... " Jo closed her eyes and shook her head in frustration.

"My knees will ... buckle very soon if we don't," he confessed. "Please." He gestured again toward the table and relaxed a bit when she gave in and sat down. She pulled out the photo from her jacket pocket, placing it on the table between them, and he eased down into the chair next to her.

"That's Abraham," he said, pointing to the baby.

"I figured as much," she said. "Cute."

"His mother is holding him," he continued, his voice caressing the words as he fondly recalled that picture-taking day.

"Sylvia Blake, Abe's mother," she recalled. "Only ... that wasn't her real name, was it?" He opened his mouth to respond but said nothing. "Lucas mentioned that she had used different aliases. Stands to reason that Sylvia Blake had also been an alias. Was I wrong to have assumed that?"

"No, no," he replied, shaking his head. "It ... her real name was ... Abigail." Jo's eyes widened and she leaned forward looking at the photo. "Abigail Morgan. My wife," he clarified. Jo's eyes narrowed as she lifted them up to meet his and she leaned away from him.

"Henry, what you're trying to tell me is that you are Abe's father?!" He gulped and nodded, pressing his lips together. "Well, that just ... makes no sense."

He huffed out a sigh and replied, "It does if ... if his father never ages."

Anger began to cloud her face even while she worked to fend off the laughter that threatened to burst from her. "You mean like the Highlander?"

Henry frowned, recalling that Lucas had once mentioned that very same word. "Highlander," he repeated. Turning his head sideways but keeping eye contact with her, he asked, "Is that some sort of term or reference to an Immortal?"

Jo rolled her eyes and replied loudly, "Yes! An Immortal. You're saying that you're an Immortal, that you live forever, that you never die?" She had risen from her chair and was pacing slowly back and forth in front of him, the pitch of her voice rising higher and higher as she spoke.

"Well, I do die, Jo, I just don't stay dead," he corrected her.

At that, she froze for a moment, turned an incredulous face to him, then rolled her eyes and resumed her rant and slow pacing, her fists balled up in anger.

He rose from his chair, as well, unsuccessfully trying to get a word in edgewise while simultaneously extending his arms out to her and then flopping them down in frustration when she ignored him.

She suddenly stopped pacing and turned to face him with her hands on her hips. "Henry Morgan, you said that it was a _long_ story, not a **crazy** story!"

Abe seemed to appear from out of nowhere with a roast duck and all the trimmings on a serving platter. He set it down on a wheeled serving trolley near the stairs and rolled it over to the table. Keeping his eyes on the delicious entree, he straightened up a bit with one fist shoved against his hip. He then said to his father, "Maybe you should have waited until after dessert."

Jo dropped her hands from her hips and strolled nonchalantly closer to Abe. "What? Feed me great food first then feed me this, this bull?!"

"Since when did I become the bad guy in all of this?" he asked his father as he pointed to himself.

"Well, as it turns out, she has a bone to pick with you, as well," Henry informed his stunned son.

"Why? Because she feels I helped you keep the truth from her?"

Henry cleared his throat and replied simply, "Yes." He glanced at Jo, who grunted and turned her back to them. "But also because she now knows that you may have led Maureen to believe that I was your son. You're basically ... an accessory before, during, and after the fact."

"I never told Maureen such a thing!" he said, his fists on his hips.

Jo spun around and stepped closer to them. "But you never told her that he wasn't, either," she speculated.

"I didn't exactly ... well ... it's complicated," he reluctantly admitted, clearing his suddenly dry throat.

"Oh, ho, ho. Complicated. Those are the words of the day for you guys," Jo said disdainfully. When neither of them replied, she suddenly grabbed her purse and armed into her jacket. "Sorry, guys, but I gotta get out of here. You want to continue to talk crazy like this instead of telling me the truth ... "

"But we are telling you the truth, Jo," Henry told her.

"Then I'm gone," she said. They watched her leave the terrace and disappear down the stairs.

Henry walked a few paces after her but stopped a few feet from the stairs. Although his back was turned to Abe, the tension, frustration, and disappointment were evident in his posture. He hung his head and then ran a hand over his dark curls. Turning around slowly, he walked back to the table and sat back down in the chair he'd previously occupied. Abe came up behind him and proceeded to knead the tight muscles in his neck and shoulders.

"Sorry, Pops," he quietly told him. "I was sure it would go better than this."

"I've lost her, Abe," Henry said forlornly. Baby Abe's and Abigail's smiling faces in the photo caught his eye and he picked it up to look closer at it. He rubbed his thumb over their faces, a pained smile of remembrance on his lips.

"Nah, she'll be back," Abe reassured him, patting him on the shoulder. "She's a detective. Once she puts two and two together, she'll know we weren't lying to her."

Henry clutched the photo with both hands now. "We were a ... happy family for a while."

"That we were," Abe agreed wistfully.

"Just ... was hoping that she would have ... believed me, accepted me. And in time ... " His voice became quiet and it was harder to see the photo clearly because of the tears welling up in his eyes.

"Time. That's one of the key words of the day, isn't it?"

Both men startled, snapping their heads in the direction of Jo's voice as she stood near the top of the stairs again. She shook her head and closed her eyes then opened them before stating, "You did fall off the roof of Grand Central along with Koehler."

Henry rose from his chair, encouraged. "Yes. Yes, I did."

"My God," she said in jaw-dropped wonder. "You're an Immortal."

Notes:

Slight reference to "Forever" 2014-2015 TV show Pilot episode that aired September 2014 on ABC and to S01/E22 The Last Death of Henry Morgan.

The character, Abigail Morgan, appeared in ten episodes and the character, Maureen Delacroix, appeared in S01/E08 The Ecstacy of Agony.


	3. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 3 Abe's Close Call

"My God, you're an Immortal," Jo said. She stood frozen to the spot at the top of the stairs of the rooftop terrace.

With a hopeful smile and his brow slightly wrinkled, Henry extended his hand to her. It took a few moments for her brain to tell her hand to grasp his. Her legs finally worked enough for her to clear the landing and allow him to guide her back over to the dining table. He eased her back down into the chair she had vacated only moments before and sat in the chair next to her again. A questioning Abe caught his eye and with just a minute shake of his father's head, Abe understood and left the roast duck covered and descended the stairs to the living quarters below. Henry turned his attention back to Jo, who alternately fingered the photo while gazing at it and then raised her head, her eyes moving side to side.

Henry thought it best to remain silent while she put the few puzzle pieces she had together in her mind. He waited for her to let him know when to supply her with more pieces that made up the larger puzzle of who he was. But even he knew that he did not possess all of the information she might require. For the reasons behind his never ending life, its purpose and meaning, still eluded him after two centuries of searching. So he sat with his elbows resting on the table, silently watching her with his head slightly bowed and his mouth pressed against his clasped hands. He lowered his hands when she finally turned to look at him, blinking.

"H-how long, Henry?" she asked, shaking her head. "Were you ... born like this?"

"No," he quickly replied then paused for a moment, thinking. "Actually," he chuckled, "I don't know. After having shared my secret with someone a long time ago, the person told me that I was chosen."

"Chosen," she repeated. "You mean like by ... God?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," he replied, taking slow, careful breaths. "According to him, at least. Abigail did tell me on more than one occasion that there was a reason for me being this way." He once again pressed his mouth against his raised, clasped hands.

"That makes sense, Henry," she told him.

His gaze left hers and she could tell that he was getting lost in his memories. He'd once told her it was his imaginings but she now knew they were memories. Just how far back his memories stretched was her next question.

"You weren't born in 1979," she stated, looking at the photo again then back at him. "When were you really born?"

A smile unexpectedly tugged at his lips. Nerves, he concluded. "September 19th - 1779." He let it sink in before saying anything else. Jo's eyes grew wider and wider, her mouth slightly open. She picked up the photo and gazed at it.

"Abigail. She knew," she said. "When this photo was taken, she knew, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did," he replied. "But only because I'd been stabbed in a street brawl and had died in her arms."

"You? Brawling in the streets?" she asked, incredulous.

"She'd been physically and emotionally abused by an ex-boyfriend. Spurred on by anger, I was feeling rather bricky - "

"Bricky?"

" - brave, fearless - and I had challenged him to a fight to defend her honor," Henry explained. "He, being the coward that he was, he chose to back slang it (took the back way out) and pulled a knife on me during our fist fight. He fatally stabbed me and ran away."

"And then ... wow ... I can't imagine what the two of you went through at that time," she said, looking at the photo again. "But she must have loved you very much." Jo held up the photo to eye level. "The three of you just look like any other young couple in love and with their beautiful baby."

"We were," he replied. He took the photo from Jo and studied it, his lips pursed. "For a time. Abigail was a ... a remarkable woman. Of course, that unfortunate occurrence forced me to tell her my long story much as I'm telling you right now. She accepted me and we adopted Abraham and raised him as our own son. For nearly forty years, we were together until she ... until she left."

"Did you try to find her?"

He scoffed. "For thirty years I searched for her," he replied. "In the first few years, I'm sure the police began to hate me. I contacted them so regularly with this clue or that clue that was sure to help find out where she was." He grinned mirthlessly and shook his head. "She had learned from me and our many moves on how to hide and not be found." He waved a hand and touched his fingers to his lips, indicating that it was difficult to discuss that part of his life.

Jo bit her lower lip, understanding. She looked around and then back at him. "Um ... how, when did you become ... " She swept her hand toward him and they both laughed softly. "And American English, please."

"Yes. Sorry. April 7, 1814," he replied. He related how he'd been aboard the Empress of Africa slave ship as its doctor assigned to identify ill, dying, and dead slaves, who would then be tossed into the ocean before reaching port. "Instead, I was really there to free them by passing a key to them that would unlock both their cell and their shackles."

"Empress of Africa," Jo repeated. "That was the same ship that Rick Rasmussen and his crew recovered along with $2 million in gold!" He nodded.

"The ship was the last of my father's shipping line to transport slaves from Africa to the West." He explained further that he'd found out by accident in 1812 that his father had chosen to involve the Morgan Shipping Lines in the slave trade in order to save it from financial ruin. "I was appalled and embarrassed beyond words. Angered! I immediately went to confront my father and that's when he offered that lame excuse to me," he told her. She could see that even after more than 200 years, it still upset him.

"Okay. Something happened aboard that ship that made you, that transformed you," she stated.

He nodded solemnly and lowered his eyes. "The, ah, Captain, was suspicious that I'd stolen the key and he threatened me, saying that he didn't care if I was the owner's son. That his law ruled at sea. When a crew member alerted him to a slave possibly suffering from cholera, I volunteered to examine him. The Captain, however, didn't believe me when I delivered my diagnosis, that the slave was not infected. And when I refused to step aside so his men could toss the poor fellow overboard - alive - and well - he shot me in the chest at point blank range with his flintlock pistol."

"That scar on your chest," she whispered, her eyes dropping to the spot where it lay hidden under his clothing. "What happened after he shot you?"

"I died but not right away," he told her. "Some crew members carried me from the ship's cargo hold past the penned up slaves and the key dropped from my hand. That's how they were able to free themselves."

"How did you find that out if you were ... dying?" she asked.

"Isaac Monroe," he replied with a broad grin. "Turns out that he is a descendant of one or more of them and the story had been passed down in his family from one generation to the next. Anyway, the crew members tossed me in the ocean and I actually drowned before the bullet wound could take me. The next thing I knew, I was breaking the surface of the waves alive and completely naked and completely healed except for this scar on my chest. It's the only one that I carry permanently ever since that fateful night."

Jo gasped. "Naked. Naked?" A look of realization spread across her face and she clamped a hand to her mouth then lowered it, looking him directly in the eyes. "The East River." He dipped his head deeply one time with a pressed-lip, sheepish smile. "Oh, my gosh, Henry. You did say it was a long story and boy, oh, boy, it is ... it is the most amazing story I've ever heard in my life."

"Do you believe me?" he asked. "I'm prepared to offer proof to back up my claim."

"No, Henry, you don't have to do that," she told him. "I believe you." Henry closed his eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

After a few moments of silence, she said, "You hide from people, from the outside world in order to safeguard your secret." She placed one hand over his clasped hands and said, "It must be so lonely for you." She looked toward the stairs and added, "And for Abe."

He did his best to hide a grimace with a smile and replied, "It has been very lonely at times, yes. But ever since Abigail and Abe entered my life, the loneliness has been greatly minimized. Still have to move from place to place every six or seven years - ten, at a push - when people begin to notice that I'm not aging but ... " He paused, tilting his head and looking at her with a soft smile. "From time to time, I meet a friend. A special friend. Some more special than others," he added.

His penetrating gaze locked with hers, reminding her of the way he'd looked at her after he'd told her about getting lost in Paris with someone very special. That look, that soft smile, those dulcet tones had unexpectedly warmed her from within, causing her heart to beat a little faster and for her to end her whirlwind courtship with her billionaire beau, Isaac Monroe. She found herself feeling the same way now and unable to tear her gaze away from his.

"I would really hate to leave you, Jo," he quietly confessed, his voice dropping into its lowest register. "Your friendship means a lot to me."

Friendship, she thought, biting her lower lip again.

The change in her demeanor was subtle but he had still noticed it. Her seeming acceptance of him as he shared his fantastical tale with her was like watching a beautiful flower open its petals to drink in the sunshine but something had caused it to begin to close them again. What had he said to cause the change in her?

Friendship, he realized. He could kick himself for he also was reminded that she was just as guarded as he was when it came to letting people in. She fiercely protected her heart from getting broken again by caring about someone again. No, no, no, he had to make her understand that she meant much, much more to him than just a friend. He pulled his hands out from under hers and grasped hers with both of his, squeezing it.

"Jo, what I really meant to say was - "

Her phone sounded an alert for a text message. A distinctive sound she'd set up for urgent texts from Hanson or Reece. He reluctantly freed her hand to allow her to read the text and reply. In frustration, he crossed his arms and pursed his lips while she dealt with the text.

"Sorry," she told him. "This text is from Hanson. I've gotta call him, talk to him." He nodded and they both waited for Hanson to pick up at the other end. "Yeah, Mike. Wait, um ... Henry's right here. Let me put you on speaker."

"Okay, repeat for him what you just told me."

_("The prints on the bullets that killed Scanlon and Scofield belong to a guy named Ernest Delbert. He was recently fired by Scofield from her security detail after Scanlon caught him on the floor of Maureen's bedroom playing with her lingerie.") _

"So, some kind of pervert obsessed with her," Jo suggested.

"And one with a possible motive for vengeance against the two men responsible for the loss of his job guarding the woman with whom he was fixated," Henry added.

"This is almost too easy," Jo said. "Where are you now, Mike?"

_("Where else? On my way to his place of residence to collar him. I texted it to you.") _

"Got it," she said after re-reading the text. "We'll meet you there." She ended the call and pocketed her phone. She then stood up and grabbed her purse. "Ya coming?" she asked Henry.

"Of course," he replied. They descended the stairs to the second level and he grabbed his coat off of the coat rack and put it on.

Abe came out of his bedroom and walked into the kitchen when he heard their voices. "What gives? You two leaving me here to eat all that dinner alone?"

"Sorry, Abraham," Henry said as he quickly followed Jo down the stairs to the shop level. "We've got a line on the shooter."

"Well, that's great," he said. "Don't let me stop you."

Once outside the shop and near the car, Henry asked, "Does he live far?"

"Nope," she replied before getting into the car. "Just two blocks up."

So the ride was a short one. When they arrived, Jo parked her car behind Hanson's. She and Henry exited the car and jogged up the stairs into the brownstone. They walked into the livingroom and were met by Hanson as he walked halfway down the stairs from the second level.

"Too late," he told them. "Looks like the guy offed himself."

He led them up the stairs and down the hallway into a bedroom on the left. Once inside the room, he motioned one hand toward Delbert's lifeless body seated in an armchair against the wall near the bathroom . "Gunshot to the front of the head," Hanson noted. "No suicide note but here's the weapon," he said, pointing to the gun in Delbert's right hand.

Henry frowned as he drew closer to Delbert's body. He bent over with his hands on his knees. Placing his gloved fingers under Delbert's chin, he examined the bullet wound closer, turning the dead man's head slightly to the left then the right. He then stood up, surveying the room with his darting eyes, then squinting them at Delbert's body.

"Oh, c'mon, Doc," Hanson pleaded. "Suicide, right? Case closed!"

"Sorry, Detective," Henry replied, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Most suicide victims either shoot themselves squarely on the side of the head either over the top of the ear or on the side of the temple. Some shoot themselves in the mouth."

"What is your point, Henry?" Jo asked.

"I've never seen a suicide victim administer the fatal shot on the forehead just above the eye," he replied. "An odd way to have handled the gun, wouldn't you say?" he asked them. To demonstrate his point, he mimed holding the handgun pointed to his own forehead just over his right eye. "Rather uncomfortable and awkward," he stated.

Hanson's shoulders dropped along with his smile as he scowled at Jo doing her best to keep a smile under control. "You're sayin' the guy was murdered," Hanson said.

"Yes," Henry replied. "And to further that assumption, I'm willing to bet that there's no gunshot residue on his hand even though he's gripping the gun. Plus the nature of his wound is similar to that of our other two victims indicating that the shooter was more than an arm's length away from him." He turned to face the two detectives and said, "Yes. This man was murdered."

"Call it in," Jo said to Hanson, tapping his shoulder with her small notepad.

Hanson pulled out his phone and called for a bus. Later, after Delbert's body was removed from the home and the CSU took over the crime scene, Henry left to ride in the morgue van with the body. Hanson continued to grumble to Jo about their meticulous ME.

"How does he always know so much, see so much?" he asked Jo. "I mean if we still have a perp out there, then we gotta find him. But where did Henry get all of his knowledge? He read an encyclopedia a day? Guy's got too much time on his hands, if you ask me."

Jo stifled her laughter, licking her lips. If only he knew, she thought to herself. If only he knew. Then it suddenly occurred to her that Abe should be provided police protection since, according to their ME's initial examination, the shooter was still on the loose. She hurriedly got into her car and headed back to the shop. On the way, she called Abe's landline and got voicemail. It didn't take long to arrive there, though.

She pulled up to the front of the shop and froze, sucking her breath in. The door was slightly ajar and the shop was dark. The second floor lights were on easing her apprehension a bit. With her weapon drawn and the small flashlight in her other hand on top of her gun hand, she proceeded cautiously through the shop. However, Abe failed to respond when she called out for him. Once upstairs, she swept each of the rooms and found no one. She climbed the stairs to the rooftop terrace and her heart nearly stopped at the sight of Abe lying unconscious on the floor near the table. She looked cautiously around and found no one else. Kneeling beside him, she fought against panicking at the sight of all the blood from a head wound. When she realized that the bullet had only grazed his head and not penetrated, she nearly fainted from relief. Whipping out her phone, to call for a bus, she checked for a pulse and found a fairly strong one. At least she would be able to tell Henry that his son was only injured. His son was alive.

Notes:

Victoria era slang terms found at

/not-up-to-dick-100-wonderful-victorian-slang-words-you-should-be-using-9514/

Again slight references to the Pilot episode of "Forever" TV show; ; and S01/E13 Diamonds Are Forever; S01/E14 Hitler on the Half Shell; S01/E16 Memories of Murder; and S01/E18 Dead Men Tell Long Tales.


	4. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 4 Long Hairs

_Abe failed to respond when Jo called out for him when she entered the shop. Upstairs, she swept each of the rooms and found no one. Once she climbed the stairs to the rooftop terrace, her heart nearly stopped at the sight of Abe lying unconscious on the floor near the table and bleeding from the head. _

vvvv

There was no fatal bullet wound on Abe like there had been on the other two victims, Maureen's ex-husband and her fiancee. Jo breathed a sigh of relief after detecting a pulse. She grabbed a dinner napkin from the table and wadded it up, pressing it against his forehead to staunch the bleeding. She then pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and speed-dialed for a bus. Since it appeared that Abe had been attacked while on the terrace, it meant that someone had shot at him from the window or rooftop of an adjacent building. Her eyes traveled around in the general direction from which she supposed the bullet would have come. Before CSU could get there and scope out the place for evidence and of a possible trajectory scenario, Jo stood up and back a few paces to record a phone video of an unconscious Abe then up and around at the most probable locations the shooter could have perched.

Her next call was placed to the morgue for Henry. "Lucas! Lucas, this is Det. Jo Martinez. Please put Dr. Morgan on," she hurriedly requested. Abe began to stir and groan just as the EMTs and CSU units arrived. "Lie still, Abe," she told him. The responders announced themselves and advanced up the two flights of stairs to the rooftop per instructions she'd relayed to the Dispatcher. Jo stood up again and stepped back so they could attend to Abe.

"Henry. Hi, um ... try not to be too alarmed," she told him.

_("What is it, Jo?" he asked, alarmed anyway.) _

"Abe has been injured," she began, but the paramedics have him in hand."

_("Injured?! How? Wha-what happened to him?") _

"Someone took a shot at him but their aim was off," she replied. "He's conscious now and ... wait, Henry, hold on a moment." Abe was refusing to be taken to the hospital which greatly disturbed Jo. She muted her side of the conversation in order not to alarm Henry any more than he already was.

"You will let them take you to the hospital so you can be thoroughly examined," she told Abe in her most forceful, no-nonsense tone of voice. "And we need information from you about what just happened to you. Do you understand? This is part of a police investigation and I'm not going to let your machismo get in the way of that! Now, go with them. I'll follow you to the hospital in my car."

Abe stared at her, temporarily speechless at having been scolded as if he were a misbehaving brat. "Okay, guys," he wearily told the EMTs, "you heard the lady detective." The EMTs rolled their eyes at each other, helped him onto a waiting gurney, and then stablized his head. While they carried him down the stairs, Jo unmuted her phone and resumed her conversation with Henry.

"Sorry," she said, returning to the call. "He was being stubborn but I managed to convince him to go with the paramedics to get thoroughly checked out."

_("He can be very stubborn and a little too self-reliant at times," he acknowledged. "I'm glad you're there with him. Thank you. But is he seriously hurt?") _

"Looks like he was only grazed but that could still feel like a kick from a mule," she said, recalling how it had felt when she had been only grazed by a bullet once. Henry also knew how it felt and how a mule kick felt. One that had broken his right tibia while serving in World War I. By this time, she had left the shop and was getting into her car. "I promised him I'd follow the ambulance he's in. Have to talk to you later."

_("St. Vincent's?") _

"Yes." She started up her car and pulled away from the curb to follow the ambulance. "Henry, you've already figured out most of what happened to Delbert. If you feel you need to come to see about Abe - "

_("I do," he replied. "Delbert's body can keep until tomorrow morning but I'll have Lucas prep it now. I'll take a cab. See you soon. And ... thank you, Jo, for looking out for my - for him.") _

vvvv

Jo stood just outside the small ICU room where Abe lay in bed with a bandaged head and hooked up to an IV while Henry - his father - visited with him. More like inspected him, Jo thought to herself. It was a tender moment, seeing the two of them interact with each other. But only she knew that Henry was the worried but relieved father, and that Abe was his elderly son. Despite the fact that Abe was still trying to downplay his injuries and his situation of having narrowly missed being a killer's next victim, she'd seen how his eyes had lit up when his father had rushed into the room. It was the same look she'd seen before when a frightened, lost, or injured child saw their parent rushing up to them. Now they're safe, the look said. Mom or Dad is here and they're gonna take care of me.

Of course, she'd also seen that the two men had had to put their masks on, restraining themselves from any overly affectionate displays of emotion toward each other for it would probably be misunderstood or misinterpreted. And might draw too much of the wrong attention to them. Her heart went out to them because she now knew that they felt it necessary to rein in their emotions and just keep up the appearance of being good friends and roommates while in public.

"Visiting hours are over," a nurse reminded them.

"I'm a doctor," Henry told her. "Couldn't I just stay a little longer?"

"I can respect that, Doctor," the nurse kindly replied. "But we have rules and his attending physician - " Jo felt the need to intercede for them and stepped up, flashing her badge.

"Det. Jo Martinez, NYPD," she announced, displaying her badge. "This is my partner, Dr. Morgan, from the OCME. Give us a few minutes, please." The nurse reluctantly nodded and left the room.

"Thank you, Jo," Henry said. He turned his attention back to Abe and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You get some rest. I'll be back to see you bright and early in the morning." Abe smiled slightly and closed his eyes. Henry looked anxiously at Jo, who understood his unspoken concerns.

"A guard is being posted as we speak," she said, motioning toward the uni entering the room.

"Good evening. I'm Officer Margo Dobbins," she said. "I'll be right outside the door if you need anything," she told them, smiling that professional we're-here-to-help smile.

"Just you?" Henry asked, then wished he had not. "Just that I'm worried about my friend's safety."

"That's why I'm here," Ofc. Dobbins reaffirmed to him. She tipped the brim of her hat to them and walked out to seat herself in the provided folding metal chair.

Jo crossed her arms and tilted her head, looking at Henry. "Women's lib started way back in the 70s, Henry."

"Actually, decades before that," he replied in auto-lecture mode. "The 1970s saw it reach an interesting milestone." Shaking himself out of the history books lodged in his mind, he explained, "I merely meant that ... one or two more armed personnel here would be more comforting."

"Personnel shortages," Jo wryly replied. "But she's up to the task. Besides, the hospital itself has security personnel. C'mon, let's get you home so you can get some rest, too."

"I really should stay," he said more to himself than to her. "Slight concussion from the bullet's impact. His age." He shook his head and repeated. "I really should stay."

Jo placed her hand around his arm and gently pulled him away. "Not gonna do you or anyone any good if you run yourself into the ground, Henry. Let me take you home. After you get a shower and a good night's sleep, you can come back in the morning. Fresh as a daisy."

They walked down the corridor and out of the hospital. Jo drove in the opposite direction of the shop, though. When he questioned her about it, she reminded him that his home was now a crime scene.

"I just realized that. Sooo, tonight, you're going home with me. You can bed down on the couch," she told him when he protested and mentioned going to a hotel. "I'll swing you by the shop in the morning so you can get a change of clothes. Just don't think you should be alone tonight."

"I ... suppose ... but what if the hospital calls?" he asked.

"They've been instructed to call me," she replied.

"Alright," he said, finally relaxing a bit. "You win."

vvvv

The next morning, Jo did exactly as she'd told Henry the night before that she would do. While he showered and then donned a fresh suit of clothes from his bedroom closet, Jo waited for him in her car outside the shop. They hadn't really been able to discuss much about the case but they had learned that Maureen's first marriage in 1966 was to an Italian man named Edoardo Giardano, a skier and Olympic hopeful. Both of them had been just 19 years old but the marriage had lasted only four months because he had died in a tragic hunting accident.

Jo mulled that fact over in her mind and smiled when Henry emerged from the shop, locking the front door. Meticulously dressed, as usual. A new, royal blue scarf. Her smile widened when he got into the car looking more like the Henry she knew instead of the sleep-deprived, worried father from the night before.

"Took me a little longer," he explained, "because after I got dressed, I called the hospital and was able to speak to Abe. He sounds more chipper this morning. And he's refusing to eat the hospital food," he added, chuckling. "Wants me to bring him something from Browning's around the corner from the hospital." He looked at her apologetically. "I know you don't really have the time - "

"Plenty of time," she said, interrupting him. "They've got great hot cafe mocha's."

While they drove over to the cafe, she brought up Edoardo Giardano and his tragic death. "Must have been horrible for her," Jo said. "Only three months together and ... " Her voice trailed off before adding, "she was a young widow." A much younger widow and much sooner than even she had been when Sean had died. She didn't know either of them but her heart went out to them.

"A sad coincidence that he died also from a gunshot wound," Henry said. He wasn't sure if the 'also' referred to the other two victims associated with Maureen or to himself.

"Yeah. Quite a coincidence," Jo remarked. In the back of her mind, she thought it might be good to question Maureen about what she knew about her first husband's death. In her time on the force, she'd come to know that sometimes a serial killer's first victim was someone they knew. Someone close to them. Unbeknownst to her, Henry was mulling over the same thoughts in his mind.

They made their breakfast run to the cafe of Abe's choosing and picked up coffee and pastries for themselves. When they arrived at the ICU, they were told that Abe had been moved to a room on the third floor because his doctor wanted to make sure he was properly recovering from his concussion. Once inside his room, he greeted them enthusiastically. A man in combat fatigues around the same age as Abe with a long, ponytail of white, wavy hair and piercing blue eyes, was just finishing up his visit.

"Hey, you two," Abe began, "this is Frank Heffington, an old Army Ranger buddy of mine from back in what, 67?" he asked the man, who nodded and exchanged greetings with Henry and Jo. "I was discharged the first year of his stint. You're lookin' at a crack shot, here!"

Frank raised his right hand and scratched the top of his head - a nervous tic, Henry concluded - and took a few quick steps away from Abe's bed. "Well, gotta go now," Frank told Abe. "Get well soon, buddy." He gave a quick wave to them all and left the room.

"Now, you're talkin'," Abe said, grinning at the takeout container. He pressed the control to raise the top portion of his bed and Henry placed the delicious smelling breakfast of scrambled eggs with spinach and mushrooms, home fries, a thick slice of ham, and a buttermilk biscuit on his food tray. Abe pulled the tray near him and took in a big whiff before digging in. "Only thing is, this IV limits my mobility and this plastic dinnerware really doesn't do the trick."

"Sorry," Henry said. "Wouldn't have been able to get any silverware past the metal detectors, anyway."

Abe told them how he had decided to dish up some of the delicious roast duck dinner he'd prepared and the next thing he knew, "Lights out," he said.

"You neither saw nor heard anything?" Jo asked.

"Heard this loud 'crack' like the sound of a rifle firing. I remember what they sound like. Then it felt like a hammer hit me on the side of the head. You guys recover the bullet?"

"CSU did, yes," Jo replied. She brought up the image of the rimless, bottle-necked cartridge on her phone and showed it to them.

"That looks like a .308 Win or a 7.62 something or other NATO," Abe said.

"Det. Hanson once said that his father had been a gun collector," Henry stated. "He would most likely understand what you just said."

Abe chuckled a bit and swallowed his food. "The shooter probably used an M14 rifle and that type of round is a popular sniper round. During the Vietnam War, the M14 became useful as a special-purpose long-range rifle. In the 1970s, the Army converted several thousand M14s to M21 sniper rifles." Abe took a sip of his OJ and frowned. "Whoa ... listen to me lecture!" he said, directing his frown toward Henry.

"Abe, do you mind if I examine your wound?" Henry asked him, choosing to ignore his verbal jab.

Abe stilled himself and cast a wary glance up at Henry. "If it will help the case." Henry did his best to assure him that it would so Abe relented. "Okay, but be quick. I'm starving!"

Henry walked around to the right of Abe while pulling out a pair of blue, latex gloves from his coat pocket and snapping them on. He leaned over Abe and gently peeled back one side of the bandage to reveal the wound. What he saw didn't look as bad as he'd imagined it would be. The projectile hit just above the arch of his right eyebrow, taking skin with it and leaving a wound closed with crazy glue. He noticed that the wound was widest at the point of impact which meant it hit Abe from the right. He placed the bandage back into place and stood up, snapping off his gloves and discarding them into the waste basket near Abe's bed.

"The bullet hit you from the right," Henry said. He placed his index finger up to his own eyebrow and pointed it to indicate the path the bullet had taken. "The, ah, angle would suggest that it originated from a point only one story higher than our rooftop terrace."

Abe sighed and decided to leave the particulars on where the shot actually originated from to the professionals in the room. "How long is it gonna take for this to heal enough for me to go home?"

"It all depends on the weapon, projectile speed and the bullet-weight. A bullet at the weight of 10 grams and a speed of 900 meters per second has a mength of energy measuring to 4050 Joule. That's as much as an object of 100 - "

"Ask a silly question," Abe wryly remarked, looking at Jo.

"Alright," Henry conceded, frowning slightly. "In this case, with your concussion, and considering your age ... two to three days."

Abe didn't appear to be too happy about that but he said nothing. Then a thought crossed his mind. "Hey, talk about coincidences," he began, "Frank had a crush on Maureen."

"A crush," Jo repeated. "Recently?" She took out her small notepad and flipped it open to a clean page to record any helpful facts.

"Uh, nah, back then in '67," Abe replied, taking a big bite of ham. "I'm sure he got over it, though, because he was at our first wedding in 1973." Abe stopped chewing and knitted his brow as he considered something. "Come to think of it, he was at our second one in 1979, too."

"Wow," Jo said. "Short marriages."

"Yeah, well, some people live while others just exist," Abe replied, stealing a quick glance up at Henry.

Henry gave a look of weary annoyance to Jo. "See what I have to deal with on a daily basis?" Jo pulled her lips in and her cheeks puffed out as she worked to contain her laughter.

"But getting back to your friend, Frank. You invited him to both of your weddings," Henry stated. "Did you also invite him to court for your two divorces?" he smirked.

"Ha. Ha. Ha," Abe said, mock-glaring at Henry. "If you must know, he was there in a professional capacity at both weddings. He was one of Maureen's bodyguards after she'd received some death threats and someone had broken into her dressing room and cut up a lot of her stage outfits. This food is heavenly," he moaned, rolling his eyes shut then opening them again to delve back into his meal.

"Bodyguard?" Jo said. "I don't remember his name being on the list that we got from Scofield's secretary."

"Probably just an oversight," Henry speculated. "It was rather hurried and she was very upset after she'd found Scofield's dead body."

"Of course, he doesn't provide the muscle anymore for her," Abe said as he forked up some eggs. "Works for her mostly in an advisory capacity." He chewed and swallowed the forkful of eggs. "If you ask me, though, he's a gopher now and doesn't like it," he added with a one-eyed squint.

Henry and Jo exchanged a look and they both reached the same conclusion that Abe's friend should not only be added to the list of Maureen's present and former employees but maybe his name should be at the top. Then, noticing two long, white hairs on top of Abe's bed covers where Frank had been standing, he picked them up with a single blue glove.

"Hmphf," Abe said. "Those must belong to Frank. Guy sheds like a sheep dog."

Henry held onto them with the glove. "Abe, ah, I'm sorry to have to cut my visit short with you but the autopsy on Ernest Delbert really needs to be done right away," he said. "His death and those of the other two victims are connected to your injuries."

"Yeah. Sure, sure, do your thing," Abe told him. "You guys can discuss all that death stuff somewhere else, if you don't mind. I'd like to finish my meal in peace; with the living."

Henry's eyebrows flew up and he told Jo, "I do believe we've been dismissed."

Jo grinned and moved closer to Abe on the left side of the bed. "I'm sure there's someone else who would love to be able to do this but can't right now. So, I'll do it for them." She leaned over and kissed him gently on the unbandaged side of his head. Henry ducked his head and smiled softly.

"She's a keeper," Abe said to Henry while pointing at Jo.

"See ya later," she told Abe.

They left Abe's room and while in the corridor, Henry transferred the two hairs into a small, plastic evidence bag and put it in his pocket. She and Henry left the hospital and headed back to her car.

"Any particular reason for packaging those hairs?" Jo asked him as they walked up to the car.

"Just touching all bases," he replied. "I find it quite interesting that Abe's friend is a crack shot and most likely was trained on the M14 during his stint in the Army Rangers."

"He also knows Maureen and had to know Scanlon," Jo stated. "And all of her ex-husbands including even her first husband," she concluded. She got in the car and whipped out her phone.

"Hey, Mike. Run Frank Heffington through the system; see what comes up," she said. After a pause, she said, "He was omitted from the list of Maureen's present and former employees. Henry and I suspect that he should be at the top." She nodded after he said he was 'on it' and she ended the call.

While they buckled up and she started up the car, Abe's last words echoed in Henry's head. _'She's a keeper.' _While he watched her wheel the car into traffic and point it toward the precinct, he wholeheartedly agreed to himself. And not just as a friend. He had to get her to understand that.

He cleared his throat and said, "Thank you for that, Jo. It was very sweet of you."

"Well, part of that little kiss was mine, too," she told him, smiling. "I really do care for him. He ... kinda grows on you," she chuckled, eliciting one from him.

"That he does," Henry agreed. Gathering his courage, he said, "And I know this isn't exactly the most appropriate time to say this but ... I value my relationship with you ... as much more than just friendship." He swallowed, looking at her and deciding to take advantage of the time at a stop light. "I've grown very fond of you during the time we've worked together and ... would very much like to get to know you better. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

She bit her lower lip and hesitated a second before replying, "You're right. This isn't the most appropriate time to have this conversation but ... I do understand." The light changed and she proceeded through the intersection. They were now just one block away from the precinct. He waited for her to continue as she pulled the car into its assigned parking spot on the side of the building and turned the engine off.

"I've grown very fond of you, too," she shyly told him. Shyness. An un-characteristic for her, they both noted. But to him, she looked delightfully charming, blushing the way she was now. Taking a deep breath and releasing it, she said, "We'll talk about this later?"

He covered her hand with his and returned her smile. "Oh, most definitely," he happily replied.

They gazed into each other's eyes until Henry saw a familiar figure turn the corner and head toward them: Lucas. Fortunately, he appeared to be carrying takeout from Browning's while bent over his phone. For that reason, he didn't seem to notice them. They exited the car after he entered the building and entered themselves all the while giving Lucas a wide berth. Lucas remained hunched over his phone and gave a one-knuckled punch to the elevator's call button. Once the elevator came, Lucas disappeared into it and the doors closed.

After they gathered their personal items from the plastic bins on the other side of the metal detector, they walked together to the elevators and punched the call button. A familiar voice greeted them from behind.

"Got it all on tape," Hanson gloated. Just as they simultaneously turned their heads to look at him over their shoulders, they saw him grinning at his phone. "Oh, not you guys with all that goofy gazing at each other a minute ago," he dryly commented, leaving them both relieved because he hadn't recorded their tender moment but annoyed that he had referred to the moment as 'goofy'. "Techies found surveillance footage of when Scanlon was killed," he informed them.

vvvv

"Got it all on tape, huh?" Jo wryly asked Hanson. "There's practically nothing on here that helps us spot the shooter."

"Well, yeah, there is," Hanson replied defensively. He rewound the tape and let it play again. "There's the vehicle ... shooter's hand on the weapon at the driver's side window ... Bang! We can blow that part up and - "

"Dark car, dark night, no license plate," Jo continued in her mild rant of skepticism. Then she saw something and sat up straighter. "Wait. Stop it ... Now, go back ... Stop!" The tape was stopped at the point where Scanlon was hailing a cab with his arm up, and Maureen was behind him signing an autograph for a fan. A young woman with shoulder-length dark hair was grinning admiringly at Maureen and looked to be waiting her turn for an autograph.

"Okay, I'm lookin'," Hanson said. "What am I lookin' at?"

"The girl right there," Jo said, pointing to her on the TV screen where they were viewing it in one of the conference rooms. "She's facing the street and must have had a clear view of the shooter when he rolled up." The tape advanced again and right at the point of the shot, she motioned for Hanson to pause it again. "See? She's obviously horrified but looking directly at the vehicle as it speeds off." The girl on the tape then ran from the scene in the opposite direction from the vehicle. Jo turned to Hanson frowning. "Wish she had been there when we first arrived on the scene. I'll bet she saw something that could help us."

Hanson popped the VHS tape out of the TV. "You're probably right. I'll hand this back to the Techies so they can run her through FRS."

"I'm gonna head back down to the morgue to see what Henry and Lucas have for us on our latest victim," Jo told him. Hanson said he would join her there in a few minutes.

vvvv

Jo entered the morgue to see Henry bent over Delbert's body closely studying the bullet wound in his forehead and Lucas admiringly studying him. She worked against a smile as she drew nearer to the two MEs. Her favorite corpse cutting duo for little more than a year. "Anything new to report?" she asked.

"Detective," Henry said. He straightened up but kept his eyes on Delbert's wound. "Just you?" he asked with a sly smirk as his eyes slowly trailed upward to meet hers.

She chuckled and shook her head. Lucas looked curiously at them. "Inside joke," was all she said.

"Gotcha," Lucas said, bobbing his head up and down and trying to pretend like he did get it. He didn't. But he vowed to look at the office pool to see if "inside joke" was one of the betting points on this WTOWT couple.

"Well, Lucas found something interesting while prepping Delbert's body," Henry began. "Several long, white hairs on the trousers. I'm willing to bet that they match the ones I pulled from Abe's bed covers."

"Mike's running him through the system," Jo said. "Looks like we go have a talk with Frank Heffington, expert sniper."

"Our victim was taken by surprise based on the entry wound," Henry said. "It entered his head at such an angle to suggest that he had turned away from his killer."

"He was trying to get away," Jo said. "Because he trusted whoever it was and didn't expect them to do anything like that to him."

"But why use two different weapons?" Lucas asked.

Henry shrugged. "To throw us off the trail," he said. "Make it appear that Delbert was the killer then remorse led him to commit suicide. Which, he did not," he emphasized.

Jo's phone rang and she fished it out of her pocket and answered it. "Martinez ... Okay, great. I'm on my way back up." She ended the call and dropped the phone back into her pocket. Both MEs waited patiently for her to tell them what the great news was. "A young girl we were trying to find, a witness to Scanlon's murder, just walked into the precinct."

Notes:

Information on military rifles found at

/history-us-military-riflesd/

Information on sniper rounds found at

308-winchester-7-62x51mm-nato/ and

wiki/.308_Winchester

Information on how long it takes to heal from a bullet graze wound found at

question/index;_ylt=Awr41eZ5t1hd8JwA7iEPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw-?qid=20100110124107AATtuYZ


	5. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 5 Closing In

_"Okay, I'm lookin'," Hanson said. "What am I lookin' at?"_

_"The girl right there," Jo said, pointing to her on the TV screen where they were viewing a surveillance tape of Scanlon's murder in one of the conference rooms. "She's facing the street and must have had a clear view of the shooter when he rolled up. Wish she had been there when we first arrived on the scene. I'll bet she saw something that could help us."_

_Hanson popped the VHS tape out of the TV. "You're probably right. I'll hand this back to the Techies so they can run her through FRS." _

vvvv

Det. Mike Hanson handed the VHS tape to the Techie named Lacey. She was their trusted go-to in the Tech Lab. But she never got the chance to once again prove her mettle because the young woman in question walked into the precinct right at that same moment.

"Hey, Mike," fellow detective, Deacon Barr, called to get his attention from the middle of the bullpen. Hands shoved down into his pants pockets, he turned around to acknowledge Barr. "This young lady says she has some information on a case you and Martinez are tracking."

Standing next to Barr was a young woman, who appeared to be the autograph seeker Jo had pointed out on the tape. Hanson slowly took his hands out of his pockets and stared at her. Lacey, seeing his reaction, asked if he still wanted her to do the run. "Uh, yeah, yeah," he told her. "Let's see what comes up." He walked over and introduced himself to the young woman. He could tell that she'd been crying and from the dark circles under her eyes, she had been robbed of sleep.

"Have a seat," he told her, motioning to his desk and the chair beside it. The young woman sat down in the chair and he walked over to the coffee pot behind Barr's desk. He soon returned to her and placed a paper cupful of coffee with a wooden stirrer in it along with two sugar packets and one creamer packet on his desk beside her. He figured if she didn't use it, he would later. She managed a smile of thanks and ignoring the packets, took the cup and sipped from it. He sat down in his chair, grabbed a pencil from the pencil holder, and pulled a legal pad close to him. "Now," he said. "I'm Det. Mike Hanson. And you are ... ?"

"Zoe," she replied.

"Got a last name to go with that?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Um, sorry. Tulane. Zoe Tulane."

He pulled a file over to him and placed it on top of the legal pad and opened it. "Okay," he began, "what information did you want to share about, I assume, the Scanlon case?" He poised the pencil over the pad, ready to write down what she said.

"I saw him shoot that man," she said, a haunted look in her eyes. "He shot him and then, he just drove away," she said, chuckling nervously and flopping a hand up then down. "Never saw anyone get killed before. I mean, in the movies, on the news, and stuff but ... right in front of me?" She shuddered again, frowning in disgust.

"And you're sure it was a man?" She nodded and mentioned that even though he had a long ponytail, she was sure. "Would you recognize the shooter if you saw him again?" he asked. It was hard enough getting information out of a witness. They were usually very traumatized by what they'd seen.

"Sure," she said. "He was looking right at me. No expression on his face. Didn't know that anyone could look so ... so uncaring about ending someone else's life. Old guy, too!" she added, indignant.

"You've been a big help," he told her. "We'll notify you once we round up some suspects for the line up." Then he thought to ask her if she'd noticed what kind of car the shooter had been driving.

"A black Ford Explorer. Could have been a Sport. My brother has one but doesn't drive it anymore. You guys keep pulling him over and ticketing him because there are no license plates on it. They were stolen last month when it was parked at the airport."

No license plates, he mulled. "Uh, for the record, what's your brother's name?"

"Harrison," Zoe replied. "Harrison Arthur Ford," she said with squared shoulders and jutted jaw, then relaxed into a mirthful chuckle. "He's actually my half-brother. Mom was so into that actor that she thought if she named him after him, he would grow up to be somebody important, too."

He had to know. "Did it work?"

She chuckled louder. "He works at one of those big box stores. In shipping and receiving. I guess it's important that he takes large items to customers' cars for them," she wryly noted. "Important to them."

He nodded and tore the page off of the pad, turned it around and handed her the pencil. "Write down anything else you can think of and, uh, where your brother works. We might wanna talk to him, too." He then picked up the receiver on his desk phone and speed-dialed Jo's cell phone. He filled her in and she told him that she was on her way back up from the morgue. He ended the call and walked over to pour himself a big cup of coffee.

vvvv

Jo had reviewed both Hanson's and Zoe's handwritten notes that possibly implicated Frank Heffington as the murderer of Durwood Scanlon. She shared with him about the long, white hairs found on both Delbert's clothing and on Abe's hospital bed covers after Frank had visited him. They were now on their way to question and possibly arrest Frank at his home in a residential, working-class, low-to-middle income area not far from St. Johns University. Once there, they parked in front of the home and couldn't help noticing the for sale sign posted in the middle of the front lawn.

"The guy was workin' security for Maureen all those years," Hanson said just before they rolled up to Frank's home.

"Abe did say that he's been demoted to being more like a gopher. Big drop in pay," Jo said.

"Ouch! Nice home to have to lose if that's the reason," Hanson remarked as he parked and glanced over the home and neighborhood.

"Possibly adds to motive?" Jo speculated.

They exited the car and once at the door, knocked and loudly announced themselves. "Frank? This is Det. Martinez, NYPD." After a pause and second loud announcement, they drew their weapons. "We are coming in, Frank!" Jo called loudly. "You smell smoke?" she rhetorically asked her partner, who quickly responded "Yeah!" before he kicked in the door. Once inside, they stealthily made their way past the small entry way. Jo took the downstairs area and Hanson took the stairs to the second level to clear it. "Clear" rang out from upstairs and Hanson ran down the stairs to rejoin his partner. It worried him that he hadn't heard her yell out her own "Clear!"

He found her in the kitchen with her gun pointed at Frank, who stood with one hand on the back door as if poised to run out of it. He raised his gun in support of her and slowly moved up alongside of her. "Hands where I can see them!" Jo ordered him. Frank hesitated as if still deciding to sprint out of the house. "Hands where I can see them!" she repeated.

Finally, Frank released the door knob and straightened up with both hands in the air. Hanson quickly moved in on him and cuffed him. He turned him around and led him out of the house amidst Jo reading his rights to him while he slowly shook his head and repeated to them that they were making a big mistake. Hanson nodded in supposed agreement and began to warn him.

"Sure, sure. Listen to your rights being read to ya. Maybe wanna take advantage of that 'right to remain silent' one," he wryly advised him.

vvvv

"Number 1, step forward," a uni, in a corner of the lineup room out of view of the one-way mirror, instructed him. One by one, each man was called to step forward, hold their arm straight out and grip an imaginery handgun, then stand facing right, then step back in line.

The suspect, Frank Heffington, was the fourth of five men standing side-by-side. The other four were "fillers" or "foils" - people of similar height, build, and complexion who were probably prisoners, actors, police officers, or volunteers. The wall behind each of the five men in the lineup included markings to aid identifying their heights. The room on the other side of the one-way mirror allowed the witness, Zoe Tulane, to remain anonymous.

For evidence from a lineup to be admissible in court, the lineup itself must be conducted fairly. Both Jo and Hanson knew that they could not say or do anything that might persuade the witness to identify the suspect that they preferred. This included loading the lineup with people who looked very dissimilar to the suspect, Frank.

Zoe shook her head, frowning at the first three men, then her demeanor changed when Frank stepped forward. He stared straight ahead as if seeing her but, of course, he couldn't. She stepped back from the viewing window and said, "That's him." When Hanson asked if she was sure, she nodded quickly, closing her eyes, and said, "Yes. I'm sure."

The uni in the viewing room contacted the one inside the lineup room via two-way radio clipped to the left side of their uniforms and instructed him to dismiss the other four men. After they left, a very worried-looking Frank was led out of the lineup room and taken to an Interview Room.

vvvv

Shortly after Henry and Jo had left, Abe was finishing up his tasty breakfast and received another visitor in his hospital room. A woman very special to him - with flaming red hair.

"Fawn!" Abe greeted her with a broad smile. "You got my message."

"Yes," she replied. "What on earth happened to you?" she asked as she moved closer to him and planted a kiss on his forehead in the same spot that Jo had. She was definitely a keeper, too, he thought.

"Some ... idiot took a shot at me," he told her, lightly touching his right hand to the bandage on his forehead. "They were either a lousy shot or my noggin is harder than I thought it was," he wisecracked.

"Abe, this is nothing to joke about," she told him. "You could have been killed!"

"Well, I wasn't, okay? And looks like I'll be going home tomorrow or the day after," he told her in an effort to quell her anxiety.

"All that your roommate, Henry, told me was that you had had an accident and had been taken to St. Vincent's," she said. "I wish he'd been more specific."

"Hey, don't blame him," Abe told her. "He said just what I told him to say. I'll be fine," he assured her.

"Abraham Morgan, the next time you get hurt, don't hide the truth from me," she educated him.

"Even if it's just a hang nail?" he deadpanned.

"You know what I mean," she admonished him. She pulled up a chair and sat down with her arms crossed over her chest. "Now. Tell me exactly what happened to you." He saw no way to get out of it so he proceeded to tell her about the events of the previous evening that had caused him to wind up in the hospital with his head wound.

"My Lord, Abe," she whispered and grabbed his hand, rubbing it. "I'm so glad you weren't hurt any worse than you were. But why would someone want to take a shot at you?"

"Ehhh, Henry and the police think there might be a connection to the murder of a guy named Durwood Scanlon," he replied.

"Oh, I heard about that in the news," she said. "Poor man. He was romantically linked to Maureen Delacroix, your ex-wife, right?"

"Yeah, that's what I hear," he replied. "You know, when she first called me, I thought for a while that ... "

"That she had shot him like she had once shot you?" Fawn finished for him.

He twisted his mouth over to the side and nodded. "Thought that she might go down, you know, like ... like someone else I'd heard about." Fawn nodded, understanding that the 'someone else' he referred to was Nora, his father's first wife.

"Just ... felt so sorry for her. Still do, as a matter of fact," he added. "Now, she's alone again. And even though she and I had two marriages," he paused to squeeze her hand. "She never made me feel the way that you do and we're not even married yet. Oh, it was exciting with her and she does have a big, loving heart but ... life doesn't have to be sounded out at decibel levels. You miss so much along the way and you wind up trampling the roses instead of smelling them." He squeezed her hand again and breathed deeply in and out. "Got kinda tired of not smelling the roses."

Fawn stood up and kissed him on the lips and then on the forehead again. She sat back down and they smiled at each other while they held each other's hand tightly. While they did that, Abe's next visitor stood just inside the doorway hidden from them by the curtain surrounding his bed. The visitor couldn't take a step further when she'd heard their conversation. At first enthusiastic and looking very much forward to seeing her old flame - husband #2 and #3 - she'd shifted the large bouquet of red roses and heart-shaped box of chocolates from one arm to the other and smoothed a hand down her white sleeveless dress with a wide blue sash. Red, white, and blue. Those were the colors she'd wanted to present to him. It had been nearly a year since they'd last seen each other but she had been sure that he would be just as excited to see her as she was to see him. But hearing him speak to another woman this way about her ... about pitying her ... had taken the wind out of her sails. The love in his voice and in the voice of his female visitor was unmistakable. It was the same way that they used to speak to each other. At least, that's what she liked to think. She'd never heard him say such heartfelt, philosophical words before, though. Words that spelled a death knell for any new relationship with him.

Maureen quietly turned around and left Abe's hospital room. She walked up to the nurse's station displaying her best brave smile and laid the gifts on the counter, making sure to pluck the personalized card from the roses. "A small thanks for you and your dedicated staff," she perkily said to the surprised and grateful Head Nurse. She then walked into an already open elevator. As the doors were closing, she realized that a chapter in her life was also closing - on the love of her life. The one who'd gotten away. Twice.

vvvv

Back at the 11th Precinct ...

Frank Heffington sat in the Interview Room with his hands cuffed and chained to the other side of the table. Jo sat across from him with an open file folder in front of her. Hanson sat next to her and stared intently at their suspect, who gazed in dismayed disbelief at his cuffs. Reece stood and watched on the other side of the one-way mirror, her hands clasped behind her back. Henry, taking a break from his lab coat and scalpel, stood next to her with his hands clasped in front of him.

"You've been very quiet, Doctor," Reece said, not taking her eyes off of the suspect and her two detectives. "Do you believe his proclamation of innocence?"

Henry heaved a breath in and out before replying. "Granted, our evidence is circumstantial, as he says. The handgun registered to him was actually reported stolen prior to being used to kill both Scanlon and Delbert."

"Delbert's fingerprints were found on the weapon," Reece quietly reminded him. "Not our suspect's."

Henry nodded and continued in his train of thought. "The hairs, likewise, are circumstantial since, on average, humans shed approximately 100 head hairs per day. And he knew and worked with Delbert in Maureen's employ. It would not be unusual to find his hairs on Delbert's clothing or on Abe's bed covers like we did." He paused, frowning.

"I hear a 'but'," Reece said with a slight smile.

Henry smiled softly and looked down at his feet then back up. "He still had both opportunity and motive. Putting aside the murders of both Scanlon and Delbert, Abe was shot with a totally different weapon by someone with less than stellar sharpshooter skills." He looked at Reece and continued. "When Abraham introduced us to him, he excitedly called Heffington a crack shot. What had thrown his aim off when it came to Abe?"

"Look at him," Reece replied, unclasping her hands to motion toward him and then reclasp them. "He's in his 60s. Eyesight beginning to suffer, grip beginning to weaken. Speaking of which, have you and Jo had a chance to search the apartment in that abandoned building across from your rooftop terrace yet?"

Henry pondered briefly why Reece had omitted Hanson from their would-be search team. He cleared his throat when she looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "Ah, no, not yet. The three of us," he said, dipping his head toward Jo and Hanson, "are waiting for a go-ahead call from the city's Building Inspector."

They both unclasped their hands when their attention was riveted back to what was happening on the other side of the glass. An agitated Frank attempted to stand up but his cuffs prevented him from doing so. Hanson quickly left his seat and walked around the table, pushing Frank back down into his seat by the shoulder.

"Sit back down!" Hanson ordered Frank as he pushed him down. He sat back down and leaned forward on his elbows.

"You can't make me for this!" he hissed at them. "All your evidence is flimsy, to say the least. And I reported that handgun missing more than two weeks before either of jerks were killed."

"Well, you were picked out of a lineup by an eyewitness to Scanlon's murder," Jo said.

"She's a lyin' freak!" Frank yelled.

"How'd you know the witness is a 'she'?" Jo asked, a sly smile playing at her lips.

Frank's mouth opened and closed a couple of times before looking imploringly at Hanson. "Well ... you - " Hanson slowly shook his head while silently mouthing 'No'. Frank then clamped his mouth shut and sat back hard in his chair. "I want my lawyer."

"First smart thing you've said today," Jo said. She closed the file and stood up along with Hanson, who instructed the uni on the other side of the door to take Frank down to Holding.

Notes:

Information on police lineup procedures found at

wiki/Police_lineup

Information on hair shedding found at

.


	6. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 7 Waddawe Got?

Shortly after Frank Heffington had apparently confessed, and Henry had shared some of his thoughts on the case, Lt. Reece thought it best to go over all of the evidence in the string of murders with her team. After Frank was escorted out of the Interview Room, she and Henry joined Jo and Hanson in the hallway.

"Good work, everyone. Let's go over everything in the tank," she said, referring to the bullpen's small conference room diagonally across from her office. "We want to make sure we're dotting all of our I's and crossing all of our T's." They followed her in and each of them took a seat around the conference table. After she'd closed the door, she sat down last at the head of the table. "Now," she began, "A to Z, what do we have?" She didn't mention either Ernest Delbert or Frank Heffington. In any given case, she knew that the evidence could sometimes point to one suspect and just as quickly to another.

The evidence had, at first, seemed to point to Ernest Delbert as the killer of both Durwood Scanlon and Paul Scofield to get revenge for them having axed him from Maureen's security detail. That part made sense to them but their eye witness, Zoe Tulane, had turned that on its side after she ID'd Heffington as Scanlon's shooter.

"Can we make him as Scofield's shooter?" Mike asked. "Even though the handgun that killed Scanlon and him was reported stolen by Heffington."

Henry acknowledged that the ballistics report proved the bullets he'd retrieved from both men's wounds were a match for each other and were fired from the same gun. "Heffington may have falsely reported the gun stolen, shot both men and then planted the gun on Delbert after having shot him in an effort to make it look like a suicide."

"Then he was forced to use a different weapon to shoot at your roommate, Abe," Jo said, almost stumbling over the word 'roommate'. Apparently, neither Reece nor Hanson picked up on it but Henry shot her a quick glance of gratitude at keeping the cover on who Abe actually was.

"How is your roommate doing now?" Reece asked Henry.

"Remarkably well, thank you," he replied with a soft smile. "His doctor is expected to release him from the hospital tomorrow morning."

"I'm curious," Hanson began. "How did Delbert's prints get on the two bullets that killed 'em, then? And how could they not have been obliterated once they pierced through their skulls?"

A knock on the door turned their heads to see Lucas standing on the other side. Henry quickly rose and opened the door. He then took an envelope from Lucas and thanked him. Lucas longingly cast his eyes over the group inside but turned and left, although reluctantly. "I think Lucas can answer that," Henry replied. Reece appeared to have no objections, so he called to Lucas and beckoned him back. Lucas grew a nervous grin and his long legs helped him stride quickly back to the conference room. Henry opened the door wider to let him enter. "Won't you join us? Det. Hanson has some questions regarding the Scanlon and Scofield murders that I'm sure you can address."

"Me? Oh. Oh, sure. Sure," Lucas replied as he bobbed his head. _'Wow! Big Guy was entrusting him to explain all that goo gob about the prints and the bullets to the other members of their awesome team of crime solvers. Wow!'_ At least he was familiar with the topic since he'd already researched it and used it in one of his short films a few months ago. Jo moved over one chair and allowed him to slide into the one between Henry and her. He looked expectantly at Hanson as he tried to keep his eagerness in check. Didn't wanna embarrass the Big Guy for having let him join in. He eyed Henry in his periphery and mimicked his squared but relaxed shoulders and hands clasped on the table in front of him.

Hanson stifled a laugh and cleared his throat. "Okay, uh, how did Delbert's prints get on the bullets if he didn't really steal the gun from Heffington?" Lucas was a good kid but he was really hoping that Henry would respond.

"Oh, uh, how. Right," Lucas stumbled out the beginning of a reply. "Well, it, uh, turns out that besides women's ... ," he paused and gulped, searching for the appropriate word in deference to the ladies present. " ... lingerie, Delbert had a thing about guns and bullets and all kinds of weapons. Like a pyromaniac is fascinated by fire, he was fascinated by weapons. Heffington could have let him ... play with the bullets. And afterward, made sure that only his prints remained on them."

"How?" Reece asked, causing Lucas to almost jump out of his skin. She rolled her eyes at his reaction and said, "I don't bite, Mr. Wahl."

"That was my next question," Hanson said.

"How did the prints stay on after they'd been fired and how'd we yank 'em off - " Henry made a loud humming sound and side-eyed him to remind him to refrain from using too much slang. "Sorry, uh, I meant you wanna know how we were able to retrieve them from off of the bullets."

"Yes," Hanson replied with a slight smile, sliding his eyes to Jo, then Reece, then back to Lucas.

Henry felt the need to come to his young assistant's defense for he truly was very intelligent. Just nervous. "Lucas is really very learned on this subject and many others (he assumed). Proceed, Lucas."

"It's actually the spent bullet casings that Delbert's prints were lifted from," Lucas said. "See, in 2008, scientists found a way to reveal the patterns of corrosion that remain even after the casing's surface has been cleaned and heated to 600C." _'Did I just say that? Yeah, I did LOL.'_

"Fingerprint traces stay on the metal long after the residue from a person's finger has gone," Lucas continued. "In fact, two British police forces were the first in the world to start using the technique." He grinned at Henry and patted him on the shoulder as if thanking him for being their very own piece of this British history. He looked at Hanson and around at the others. "Anything else you want from me? Because ... I gotta ... go back and check on something in the morgue." _'Did I zip Jane Doe #143's body bag all the way back up? Gaaggg!'_

"No. Thank you, Mr. Wahl," the Lieutenant replied, genuinely appreciative. Lucas left the room and closed the door behind him then loped off toward the elevators.

"Lucas also found the hairs on Delbert's clothing, right?" Jo asked Henry.

"Yes, he did," Henry replied. He was proud of his assistant and coming along quite nicely.

"Becoming invaluable to you," Jo said.

"Oh, he's a good boy and, yes, he's coming along quite nicely as my assistant," Henry said then quickly corrected himself, horrified at having referred to someone who appeared to be just a few years younger than himself as a 'boy'. He coughed to clear his throat and said, "He's, he's a quick study, is what I meant to say." Jo, sitting next to him again, didn't trust herself to look at him. Instead, she covered her brow with her hand to hide her own horror mixed with amusement at his slip of the tongue.

"I assume these are the results of the ballistics tests on the M14 rifle converted to an M21 and recovered from Heffington's bedroom closet," he said a little louder than he'd wished while waving the envelope before opening it. He pulled out the report and read it, nodding his head and licking a corner of his lower lip.

Jo had reined in her emotions enough to engage herself again in what he was sharing. Just her luck, though, it was at that precise moment that she saw him giving that little lick across his lower lip, a slight glow of delight flickering on his face. Her breath caught in her throat unexpectedly and she felt flushed. Once again, she covered her brow to hide her emotions, grateful that she had worn a long-sleeved, button-up blouse instead of the scoop neck top that would have revealed much more of her blush. But although Henry appeared not to notice her silent struggle, Reece and Hanson definitely did. Hanson cast a tongue-in-cheek, furtive glance at his boss, who tried her best to ignore him. Reece sat a little more forward and raised an eyebrow slightly to Hanson, who rubbed the back of his neck and schooled his features. They were both loving this, though. Loving it! Their thoughts echoed those of many in both the precinct and the OCME: why didn't these two just get to-ge-therr?!

"As far as who may have shot Abe," Henry said, lowering the report, "everything points to Heffington, by the looks of these test results." The report passed from hand to hand, then back to Henry.

"Motive," Reece stated, her hands clasped and tabled. "Jealousy? Kill each of this woman's ex-husbands because he was not one of them and never would be?"

The others chuckled. "Something like that, perhaps," Henry replied. "But we mustn't assume anything." He found his attention being divided between their conversation and the TV behind Reece on which the tape was paused, showing Scanlon with his right arm raised, hailing a cab. Reece noticed him staring at the TV screen and asked him if there was something else. "It's just ... well ... could you rewind the tape and start it again for me," he asked Hanson. Hanson pointed the remote at the TV and the action reversed to a point where Scanlon was standing just to the left of Maureen. "Stop it there," he told Hanson.

They watched the action resume and then Henry requested the tape be paused again and rewound. Hanson fought against rolling his eyes and rewound the tape, taking direction from Henry when to stop it and press play again.

"I do apologize," Henry said, rising from his seat. He went and stood right next to the TV and pointed at the screen. "Could you make it go frame by frame or in slow motion?"

Hanson said "Sure" and did so. "Might wanna fill us in on what you're looking for, Doc," he told him as the slowed action played out before them.

"There!" Henry gleefully announced, pointing to Maureen then to Scanlon. "He was standing beside her. When the autograph seekers came up to her, he must have assumed that she would be occupied for a few moments, so he stepped in front of her to hail a cab."

"Yeah, Doc," Hanson said. "That's already been established."

Henry turned to face them, breathily energized in his "Aha" moment. "Don't you see? He stepped in front of her just as the killer's car rolled up close enough to take a shot. But if he hadn't - " he was cut off by Jo.

"Maureen would have taken the bullet," she slowly stated, realizing the implications of that fact.

"Exactly. Since, with her tall heels, they were both roughly the same height and the bullet would have hit her. Scanlon was never the target," Henry further clarified with a kind of sparkly-eyed glee he usually got when walking them through one of his 'Aha' moments. "The bullet was meant for Maureen." His startling conclusions gradually worked to bring him back down to earth. A life had been taken, after all. In the end, it didn't matter whether it was intentional or not.

"Good thing she's not in danger anymore since Heffington's in custody," Jo noted.

Lacey from the Tech Lab appeared on the other side of the door, this time with a legal-size manila envelope in her hand. Reece nodded for her to open the door. She stuck her head in and held out the envelope, stating that she was bringing it to Det. Hanson. Reece nodded again and she stepped in and handed it across the table to him. While pulling a jacketed DVD out of the envelope, he asked her what was on it.

"Apparently, the Barclay Hotel is expanding," Lacey replied. "The construction site is in the next block up from it. But there have been a couple of break-ins so the insurance company had surveillance cameras placed in strategic spots throughout the site." She pointed to the disc in Hanson's hand. "One of the cameras picked up something interesting regarding the witness in the case you're working on." He thanked her and she smiled with a quick nod and left the room.

"Let's see what Santa has for us, boys and girls," Hanson quipped as he popped the disc into the slot just above the VHS slot on the TV. The images quickly displayed. Departmental budget constraints had prevented them from upgrading these 'Big Butt' TV's to the more technologically-advanced slimmer and more lightweight ones. These double-duty dinosaurs, able to play both VHS tapes and DVD's, worked just fine for their purposes as far as he was concerned.

"Isn't that our witness, Zoe Tulane?" Henry asked.

"Yup. And our suspect, Heffington," Hanson replied, staring intently at the screen. "Lacey said it was from the hotel's expansion site in the next block." The time stamp on the video was roughly eight minutes before Scanlon had been shot. It also clearly showed Zoe in the passenger seat of the shooter's vehicle and their suspect, Heffington, in the driver's seat. They watched as he parked with the motor running and Zoe got out of it. They appeared to exchange some last minute words and she walked briskly away in the direction of the hotel. Just before the short tape ended, Heffington's profile was clearly seen, ponytail and all, as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel while seemingly waiting for Zoe to reach the hotel first.

"Geez," Hanson muttered. "She never once said that she knew him! Okay, so, he was mad at Maureen for not givin' him a look," he summed up. "Scanlon just got in the way. And the others had to go because he was jealous of 'em." Hanson shrugged. "Simple."

Reece rose from her chair, signaling the end of the meeting. "We'll hold off on submitting our findings and evidence to the DA's office. They'll be able to figure out a clearer motive once we bring our so-called witness in for further questioning." She then announced that a BOLO was being put out on the young woman.

They left the conference room and Reece returned to her office. Hanson went back to his desk with the two pieces of electronic evidence to package with the file compiled on Heffington. Henry followed Jo back to her desk and continued to stand while she sat down.

"What's going on in that mind of yours?" she asked, when he wouldn't sit but wouldn't leave.

He finally sat down in the chair next to her desk and clasped his hands in his lap, leaning over to her. "I'm thinking it would be a good idea if I spoke with Maureen again. Just to clarify Heffington's motive. I wonder if she knows anything about Ms. Tulane."

"You go see Maureen," Jo told him. "Mike and I will have another fireside chat with Heffington."

vvvv

Heffington found himself once again in the Interview Room facing Jo and Hanson and with his cuffed wrists chained to the table. He averted his eyes from the DVD almost as soon as it had started playing. Once it ended, he closed his eyes and released a sigh as if torture had ceased for him. Keeping his eyes lowered to his cuffed wrists, he finally admitted knowing Zoe and that he had figured out that she was the one who'd picked him out of the lineup.

"Where's your lawyer?" Hanson asked, looking around with raised eyebrows. "Said you were gonna get one."

"Fired her," he replied with a shrug. "Representing myself." Seeing the skepticism on their faces, he told them, "I went to law school. Graduated. Took me 18 years but I'll do fine."

"Well, let's get started, then," Jo said. Before she or Hanson could ask any questions, though, Heffington quickly began to volunteer information.

"I didn't mean to shoot Woody," he told them suddenly looking both of them directly in the eyes. "Didn't figure on him stepping into the line of fire like that."

"Who was your intended target?" Jo asked. It wasn't enough that they had their own theories about that, they needed it from Heffington for the record.

"Her," Heffington tersely replied. Hanson spread his hands with a questioning look on his face. "Maureen," he clarified, widening his eyes and sticking his neck out.

Jo bit her tongue to keep from smiling. Henry was right. Again. As usual. "Why? What had she done to deserve a bullet to the brain?"

Heffington chuckled but a darkness clouded his face at the same time. "She ruled that roost like a pampered Prima Donna. Her whims were everyone else's commands. Fire this one. Demote that one. Marry that one. Divorce him. Marry **that **one. Divorce **him**! All the while ... " his voice trailed off as troubled memories knitted his brow.

"All the while ... what?" Hanson prodded.

"All the while stringin' **me** along!" He looked at his restraints and asked, "Can't you take these off? I promise I'll behave this time."

"Sorry, but no," Hanson replied. "You don't have a good track record for behaving, buddy." Getting back on track, he asked, 'By stringin' you along, you mean you thought you'd one day be Husband # whatever?"

"She always said that she wanted me to stay close to her. That she felt safest with me around. Always smiling, always thanking me, always pecking me on the cheek, you know the deal. You know how they string you along." His eyes pierced Jo's now. "I believed her. That one day, yeah, she'd ... she'd ... see that I was the only one who really cared about her. Really loved her. All these years!" Sorrow and anger were totally engulfing him.

"Maureen promised to marry you?" Hanson asked point blank. He couldn't see the union. Poor guy was delusional, he concluded.

"N-not in so many words but ... " He looked at Jo again but spoke to Hanson. "The way they lure you with the way they look. How good they smell. Those nice, innocent little smiles. And once they hook you, they reel you in and ... and just let ya flop there, desperate for air." He chuckled mirthlessly. "Maybe they'll let you live. Throw ya back in the water only to reel ya in again and ... " He looked at Jo again, his eyes wet with tears but his body and voice trembling with anger.

"There are other fish in the sea, fella," Hanson told him flatly. "No pun intended."

"Not like her! None of them are like her," he said more to himself. "And none o' those guys deserved her. Especially that skier. A skier!" He laughed and cried at the same time. "Well," he chuckled again, "I took care of him."

"You're saying you killed her first husband?" Jo asked as calmly as she could through her shock.

Heffington scoffed. "It was no hunting accident," he said with a cynical laugh. "He hurt her. He cheated on her with those, those snowbunnies that followed him around like he was a rock star! Maureen was the star! I thought for sure with him out of the way and how she had been cryin' on my shoulder for months afterward that she would ... " He paused, slowly shaking his head. "But she saw Abe and flipped for him. Just like that!" He went on to tell how during a 1967 USO show in Seoul, Maureen had called Abe up to do a duet with her when her fellow performer's plane was delayed from Tokyo. "I always did the duet with her when Phil didn't show. That time, she called up Abe out of the audience because he was getting discharged soon. Sort of a good-bye, good luck treat for him. Never saw him as competition but the next thing I knew, they were in **LOVE** and ... I was waitin' in the wings again." He flopped a hand up in disgust.

"They were married twice, weren't they?" Jo stated more than asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "You'd think the first time she'd learned that he wasn't the guy for her."

"And you were at both of their weddings," she continued.

Heffington nodded. "Worst time was about 15 years ago when she told me that I was too old to be her personal bodyguard anymore." He grunted out a laugh. "Too old. And she put me on coffee detail. Said she was doing me a favor by keeping me on the payroll with a more meaningful job title." His lips pressed against each other while he fumed. "Put me out to pasture, is what she did. And then was gonna marry Woody. Woody! Self-made billionaire, my foot! More like self-made broke billionaire wannabe! Ya know what? Maybe I did her a favor by offing him."

"You'd had enough," Hanson said, baiting him.

"She had to be taught a lesson, yeah," Heffington replied. "Wasn't gonna stand for it anymore."

"How do you know Zoe Tulane and is she involved in this?" Jo asked, switching gears. The young woman had seemed sincere. Jo sincerely hoped she had had nothing to do with these killings.

"Zoe! Ha, haaaa!" He let out a genuine laugh. "Is she involved? Yes, but not how you think." He sat back in his chair with a smug look on his face. When Jo and Hanson waited for him to continue but he didn't, Jo asked again how the young woman was involved. "You'll have to ask her," he quietly but smugly replied. "Her story to tell."

"Oh, we will definitely speak to her when we find her," Jo said. "And we are definitely going to need more information from you on the death of Edoardo Giardano. You also killed Ernest Delbert and tried to frame him for the murders of Scanlon and Scofield," Jo said.

Heffington scoffed and raised an uncaring eyebrow. "He was a pervert with no life. I knew he had a fetish for women's underwear so I ... mighta let him into Maureen's bedroom so he could," he paused to laugh. "Indulge himself. He was fired for that and everyone would have thought he was just getting revenge on the two guys who'd demanded he be let go." Heffington shrugged. "Almost worked."

"And you shot Abe, too, because you were jealous of him, right?" Jo asked, working to contain the bitterness in her voice. This was personal. She regarded Abe as a friend. And even though no one else knew it, he was also Henry's beloved son. It would have torn his heart out if Abe had died. Hers, too, she had to admit.

"Abe." Heffington quietly said his name but in a huff. "Guy's got some kind of charmed life. He raised up and turned his head just as I got the shot off. It only grazed him. So I went to the hospital to pretend to wish him a speedy recovery," he said jokingly. "When I was just about to deliver a speedy end to him, in walked you and that fugitive from 'The Bachelor' roommate of his."

Hanson threw a hand up and rubbed his fingers across his brow to hide the amused look on his face and struggled against a burst of laughter. Jo's mouth dropped open and she leaned slowly back, looking down at her notes and pushed a strand of hair out of her face with the tip of her thumb. She had heard a lot of different descriptors of Henry from different people, herself included, when she'd called him strange and creepy after their first meeting and medical savant later on that same year in 2014. A suspect in the Jason Fox murder had declared that Henry looked 'like a decorator' because of his dapper way of dressing. And most of the women in the precinct and OCME agreed that he was 'weird but hot'. Heffington's description of Henry was a new one. She had to remember to tell him. She bit on her lower lip and gathered up the file that contained the bricks for the wall of evidence against Heffington. She and Hanson rose from their chairs and he informed the uni that the cuffs were to remain on the suspect while he dictated his confession to a stenographer. They left the Interview Room and headed back to their desks to await word of Zoe Tulane's whereabouts.

vvvv

While Jo and Hanson were having a chat with Heffington, Henry was having a chat of his own with Maureen. He'd found her rehearsing songs with her longtime piano accompanist, Randy Brustein.

"Let's take a break, Randy," Maureen told him when Henry walked into her hotel room. Randy, a portly man of average height in his late 60's with hair and features similar to Abe's, nodded mutely and rose up from the piano bench. He opened the door to the next room, a full kitchen, and disappeared behind it. "Have a seat," she told Henry, motioning to the sofa he and Jo had sat on earlier. She sat once again in the same chair she'd previously occupied, this time wearing silk, lavender two-piece pants outfit and her bangs and long hair curved inward, framing her face.

"Lovely," Henry told her. "Your voice is in good form." He sat down and crossed his legs with his hands clasped in his lap.

"Thank you," she replied. "Luckily, the songs don't have to be played in a lower key at a slower pace for me yet." They both chuckled softly. "How can I help you, Henry, who is not Abe's son?" He grimaced a bit and she apologized. "It's just that I was so sure and ... was so looking forward to meeting the mysterious figure who had loomed so largely in our lives throughout both of our marriages. Did you know that you are one of the main reasons behind both of our divorces? Granted, Abe might remember things his own way, but I was a new stepmother and wanted to at least meet you. I had questions about you that he simply refused to answer. Out and out lied sometimes. Drove me up the wall! Made me think that I wasn't good enough to meet his precious little boy." She flicked her head to the side and said, "Sorry. Didn't mean to sound so ... evil." They exchanged a soft chuckle again and Henry shook his head slightly, assuring her that she didn't sound evil at all and almost liking her in spite of himself.

She leaned forward, resting her left elbow on the arm of her chair with the side of her head resting aginst her fist. "I know you came here to ask me more questions, but, Henry Morgan - how are you really connected to Abe? Now, before you answer, the two of you do have the same last name," she pointed out.

Henry was caught off guard by her frankness even though he'd expected her to be curious about him. This was precisely why he had always chosen not to meet any of his son's friends or paramours. What had he been thinking, coming over here by himself to question her? It was going to be painful and arduous, but he mentally opened up his book of pre-formed lies and turned to the page that he and his son had rehearsed and shared with Jo one night on their rooftop terrace in late 2014. Only Abe would not be there to hold up his end of the lie. He was on his own.

"Abe and I are actually distant cousins," he began. Maureen's eyebrows flew up and she lowered her arm and sat back in her chair. "I'm not sure if you know this, but Abe was adopted, so Morgan is not the name he was born with." Maureen nodded, noting the numbered tattoo on his right arm from his time in a Nazi death camp. "Well, once he'd learned his true last name, he eagerly began to research his family tree and found me perched on one of the branches." He hoped she would swallow these half-truths and he could get on with his own questions concerning the case.

Maureen narrowed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, eyeing him up and down. "Why didn't he just tell me that, then?"

"He was only made aware of this distant, familial connection last year," he replied in Abe's defense. "Before that, my father and he were business partners. My old man procured certain items of interest and shipped them to Abe in the states and he stored them and eventually readied them for sale." Henry gulped to temporarily stop the flood of lies pouring out of him and allow him to catch his breath before continuing. Was she buying any of this?

"I don't recall ... well ... I guess," she began as she tried to match his words with her own memories of those times. "He didn't have that shop during either of our marriages. When did your father die? And why didn't Abe mention anything about him to me? He always only mentioned you. Fondly, if I recall correctly, although vaguely. But still, only you and not your father." Her mouth opened wide in silent laughter and her eyebrows flew up. "Were those two involved in the black market?"

"I can assure you that Abe would never knowingly get involved in anything illegal," Henry adamantly replied. Well, besides obtaining false ID papers and passports for him from time to time.

"However, my father had turned a dark corner just before his death in an attempt to repair his faltering financial situation. I'm sure he never told Abe anything about his nefarious activities." That was the definite truth since his father had died in 1812, more than 160 years before Abe was even born.

"Abe and I worked to get the shop in full working order after my father died. We opened the shop in the early 1980's." More than a year after Abigail had left. But Henry strongly believed that Maureen need not know anything about her or his long life or his true connection to Abe. And he was determined that she never would know. He hoped that by appearing to be calm and maintaining direct eye contact with her, that she would buy all of this hogwash. But it saddened him to know that the mystery surrounding him may have been the at the core of his son's two failed marriages. Would it have been the same if Abe had married anyone else? Would it spell disaster, as well, for him and Fawn? He forced himself to put these questions aside while looking for an opening to being able to ask his own questions. After a few moments of silence in which Maureen appeared to be mulling over the information he'd provided, he cleared his throat and prepared to speak.

"Oh, I am such a bad hostess," Maureen lamented. "Can I offer you anything to drink? Tea, coffee?"

He shook his head and thanked her, although tea would have been nice. "My colleagues and I have come across some additional information regarding the murders of Mr. Scofield and Mr. Scanlon and Abe's shooting." She nodded, giving him her undivided attention. "Your employee, Frank Heffington, has confessed to those crimes along with having attempted to frame your former employee, Ernest Delbert, for the murders. He then killed Delbert, as well, and staged it as a suicide."

"Oh, my God!" Maureen exclaimed, clearly dismayed and shocked. "He confessed? To all of that?" She shook her head slowly as Henry replied in the affirmative. She closed her eyes and covered her mouth with one hand and then dropped it down into her lap, shock and dismay taken over by cold anger. "Did he say why he committed these heinous acts?" she asked, her voice trembling with anger.

"Jealousy over the fact that you had chosen others and never him as your love interest," Henry told her.

"As my - ? Oh, dear God!" she exclaimed again. "He must be insane," she whispered, her fingers covering her lips.

"You had no idea that he felt this way about you?" Henry asked.

"No," Maureen whispered again, her eyes moving side to side as her brow knitted. Then she looked at Henry. "Thank God that Abe was only injured. He will be fine, won't he?"

Henry nodded, smiling. "He should be back at home by tomorrow afternoon." Gathering his courage, he said, "There's more ... he claims to have also killed your first husband, Edoardo Giardano back in 1966."

"Well, yes, he did," she replied. At Henry's look of horror, she explained, "The Canadian authorities ruled it an unfortunate accident while Eddie and he were hunting around the Duck Mountains in ... Mani ... toba. Ohhh, dear God, not my Eddie, too?! Why?"

"He said because your husband's marital infidelities had caused you pain," Henry replied, then pursed his lips.

"Oh, I knew about Eddie's stepping out on me," she rasped mostly to herself. "If I had known then that he'd taken my Eddie away from me, I would have killed him with my bare hands! How dare he, that, that _Bastard_!"

Henry then told her about the surveillance footage showing Heffington with a young woman named Zoe Tulane in the getaway car only minutes before Scanlon had been murdered. "Are you acquainted with her at all?" he asked.

"He introduced her to me about six months ago as his niece," Maureen replied. "Don't tell me that she was in on this, too?"

"The police are doing what they can to locate her so we can question her further," he told her. "You seem to be holding up remarkably well, considering all that's happened," he observed. "The man you loved and intended to marry - "

"I didn't love Woody," she said, interrupting him. "God knows I wanted to. I was trying to make the puzzle pieces fit where they didn't belong." Henry frowned at her, confused and sympathetic. "You see, last year, I paid Abe a visit. Flat out told him that I loved him and wanted us to be a couple again. Get married, even. At first, he seemed to be all for it but in the end ... he refused my offer. And Woody came along. He was smart, nice, and funny," she chuckled. "Made me laugh. Made this aching heart laugh." She choked back a sob. "I loved him but I wasn't _in_ love with him. There is a difference, you know." Henry pursed his lips into a polite smile. "Guess I just didn't want to be alone. Like I am now," she added, crossing her arms.

Henry didn't know what to say to her. Here he sat, her former father-in-law, and she didn't know it. An unexpected wave of regret washed over him regarding all the lies he'd told her earlier. He fought against the urge to comfort and counsel her. Blast! He hadn't meant to care about her. As he continued to search for some words of wisdom to impart to her, they both became aware of the hotel room's landline phone ringing. They heard Randy answer it on the extension in the kitchen. He knocked on the kitchen door before opening it and poked his head in to inform Henry that he was wanted on the phone. Henry excused himself from Maureen and walked over to the phone on the side table next to the entry door and picked up the receiver.

"Dr. Morgan here ... Oh, hello, Detective ... Great. I'll return to the precinct now." He hung up the phone and turned to Maureen to let her know that Zoe had been located. Maureen rose from her chair and followed Henry to the door. Again, he fought against the urge to give her a supportive embrace. Instead, he took her hand and lifted it up, pressing his lips onto the back of it.

"Charming," she said with a genuine smile. "Is that what guys do nowadays?"

"The ones who care," he told her simply and left her hotel room.

Notes:

Slight reference to "Forever" TV show S01/E05 The Pugilist Break

Information about the 2008 discovery on how to retrieve fingerprints from spent bullet casings found at the guardian web site


	7. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 7 Zoe's Story

_"How do you know Zoe Tulane and is she involved in this?" Jo asked Heffington. She sincerely hoped that she hadn't had anything to do with these killings. _

_Heffington laughed. "Is she involved? Yes, but not how you think. You'll have to ask her, though. Her story to tell." _

vvvv

Henry had returned to the precinct in time to join Lt. Reece and observe from the other side of the glass while their two detective colleagues questioned a slightly annoyed Zoe Tulane again. The young woman sat at the small table and her sable-colored eyes roamed around the small room, settling on the two detectives sitting across from her.

"Why was I brought in like a criminal?" she asked. "In front of all my friends, too. Embarrassing. I helped you get the guy who murdered that man."

"That guy. That man. You have no idea who either of them are?" Jo asked, tilting her head.

"Of course, I do," she replied. "His name was all over the place. Durwood Scanlon. Ms. Delacroix and him were gonna jump the broom, I heard. And ... the guy that killed him, his name is Frank. Frank Heffington."

Jo crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, gazing intently into Zoe's eyes. "Zoe ... you haven't quite been honest with us, have you?"

Zoe averted her eyes downward. "I don't know what you mean."

Jo tilted her head to her left and gave a pressed-lip glance to her partner then looked at Zoe again. She uncrossed her arms and leaned on the table, sitting forward. "You didn't bother to tell us that you knew the man you picked out of the lineup when you were here. Why is that?"

Zoe shook her head and grimaced a couple of times. "He ... he said he'd help me with Ms. Delacroix."

"Help you how, to do what?" Hanson asked, frowning slightly. "Kill her?"

"Kill - ? No!" Zoe exclaimed. "He said he'd help me tell her that ... that I'm her granddaughter."

There was a collective, inward gasp from both twosomes on both sides of the glass. Henry looked at Reece in wide-eyed surprise, her eyebrows pushed up into her hairline. "You believe her?" Reece asked him. Henry listened intently for Zoe's next words but shook his head slightly and replied that he wasn't sure.

Hanson's right arm was outstretched while he held a pencil upside down and tapped the head of the eraser on the table. Granddaughter meant that there was a parent inbetween one of his favorite female singers and this young woman. An absent parent. That is, if she was telling the truth. He jumped in with his own questions after Jo asked her next one.

"We don't have any information about Ms. Delacroix ever having children," Jo told her. She may not have shown it but Zoe's statement had completely caught her off guard.

"You're saying she had a kid," Hanson stated more than asked and with a bit more grit in his voice than he knew he should have. This kid, Zoe, was trashing one of his idols! The implication that Maureen might not have known her own grandchild pointed to a number of unsavory reasons. "And you're the kid of the kid." Zoe pressed her lips together and nodded. "Well, where's the kid? Who's your parent that is supposed to be Maureen's ... Ms. Delacroix's child?"

"My father," Zoe replied. "Edward Tulane. But his birth name was Edoardo Giardano, Jr." She chuckled nervously in spite of her circumstances. "Took me a while to be able to pronounce it correctly. He suffered major PTSD after three tours of duty in the Middle East. He died in the Brooklyn VA Hospital five years ago."

Jo looked at the glass as if to see Henry and Reece on the other side. She sighed and turned her attention back to Zoe. "It still doesn't make sense why you didn't just tell us all of this in the first place," she said.

"Frank told me not to," she replied. "He said that he would take care of everything ... butter my grandmother up before meeting me ... said he'd take care of everything." Zoe lowered her troubled eyes to her hands. "It was taking too long, though. I, I got impatient. When I found out she was going to be at that restaurant in the hotel - "

"How'd you find that out?" Hanson interrupted her. "Wait. Frank told you." Zoe nodded. Hanson looked over at Jo. "He worked for her. Knew her every move, practically." He looked back at Zoe and motioned for her to continue.

"Yeah, but he wouldn't tell her about me!" Zoe said in a strained voice. "I decided to take matters into my own hands. Gathered up all my documentation and was just gonna lay it on her. Frank drove me over there in my brother's car because he said his car had konked out. We argued a little before we got to the restaurant. He claimed he was ready to introduce me but he needed a few minutes first. I was through. Told him that he was fired and I would do it myself. I'd waited long enough."

"When I got there, I had to wait for some autograph hound that beat me to her. It was so exciting to be that near to her, a music legend. And she was my grandmother," she said in a smile through a whisper. "And when I saw Frank drive by, I just thought he was being curious. But when he raised the gun and pointed it in our direction - somehow I knew that he was aiming for me. Or my grandmother. Maybe he didn't care which one of us he killed. I don't know why, I just don't know why." She shook her head and blinked back tears. "All that time before he acted like he was so ... so nice, so caring." Her features flattened out. "He's crazy. He killed that man, Scanlon, for nothing!"

Jo bit her lower lip before telling her, "He did confess that he was aiming for Ms. Delacroix. Not you." She couldn't call Maureen Zoe's grandmother yet. It had to be proven first, and Zoe's story had to be checked out. But Heffington had sort of vouched for her by allowing her to tell her story on her own.

Hanson, still skeptical, eyed Zoe from under a furrowed brow. He tapped the eraser head on the table again and then flipped the pencil around between his fingers. He pushed a yellow legal pad toward Zoe and handed her the pencil. "Write it all down, including how you hooked up with Heffington and how you're Maureen's granddaughter."

He and Jo left Zoe in the Interview Room as she began to write on the pad. They joined their boss and their ME in the hallway. Reece informed them that they should hold her until her story could be checked out.

"Get a DNA sample from her and compare it to our would-be victim, Ms. Delacroix," Reece instructed them. "But remember, just because they might match doesn't mean that she had nothing to do with these killings." Which meant run her DNA against every bit of evidence recovered from each crime scene connected to the case.

vvvv

"Nothing," Lucas informed Henry. "Zoe Tulane's DNA doesn't show up as a match against anything found at any of the crime scenes." Henry breathed a deep sigh of relief and couldn't wait to inform Jo, who was banking a lot on the young woman's innocence.

"What about hers and Ms. Delacroix's DNA?" he asked Lucas. It surprised him greatly to see Lucas slowly shake his head. "But she seemed so believable when she said that she was her granddaughter." He held his hand out to Lucas, who passed the reports to him. Henry laid them down on the workstation near the high-powered microscope and studied them. Lucas pointed out the obvious, that nothing matched. "Yes," Henry said. "How to break the news to Zoe?" He looked up just then to see Jo standing on the other side of the workstation. He closed the file with the reports in it and walked over to her with it.

"Lieu wants to know as soon as possible," Jo began. "Do these reports clear Zoe or not?" Henry nodded with a slight smile and gave her the file. "Well, great," she said. "But there's something else, isn't there?"

"Her DNA doesn't match Maureen's in any way," he told her.

"Well ... was she lying again?" a surprised and disappointed Jo asked.

"No, I don't think so," Henry replied. "Someone else must have fed her with information to make her believe they were related." They shared a knowing look and came to the same conclusion: Heffington. "Can this guy get any uglier than he already is?" Jo asked rhetorically.

vvvv

After questioning Heffington again about the DNA results that clearly showed no relation between Zoe and Maureen, he admitted that he'd conspired with a woman named March Eubanks in 1967. She had been one of the "snowbunnies" who had followed Giardano around. Their brief affair had resulted in her giving birth to a baby boy six months after the man's death. Heffington had convinced the woman to provide Maureen's name for the birth certificate and he'd take it from there so that they could eventually have a big payday.

"It was his plan to get Maureen to marry him and they'd raise the boy together," Jo told Reece. "Only Maureen fell in love with Abe and married him."

"Henry's roommate got in the way of Heffington's plans for a big payday," Reece dryly remarked. "What happened to the mother? He kill her, too?"

"Nah," Mike replied, consulting his notes. "She died of lung cancer when the boy was 15. Her sister, a Nancy Kilgore, finished raising him til he graduated high school and joined the Army in 1984." He lowered his notepad and added, "Our perp kept in touch with the boy all those years feeding him and everyone else with the false story of Maureen being his mother."

"So, Zoe only believed what she'd probably been told all her life," Jo said. "God, she's going to be so disappointed to learn the truth."

"Doctor," Lt. Reece began, "not to question your methods but don't these tests sometimes produce inconclusive results?"

"Ah, well, yes, sometimes they do," he replied. "False positives, as well."

"Then, it wouldn't be prudent to share the report with Ms. Tulane until you have more conclusive results. Am I right?" the Lieutenant asked him, one eyebrow raised.

"Yes, yes, yes, you're absolutely right," Henry agreed, rising from his seat. Maureen's forlorn statement came back to him.

_"Guess I just didn't want to be alone. Like I am now."_

Hanson scoffed. "Can't believe it. You're not gonna tell Zoe about this, are you?"

"I'm never comfortable with reporting inconclusive results," he replied with a false smile. "Further tests will have to be done but the samples we obtained from both women have been exhausted. It will take some time to obtain more samples, assuming that they may or may not be cooperative." Henry shrugged. "There's no telling how long the whole process could take."

Hanson looked around at his colleagues and was the last one to agree to keep the truth from Zoe. "Sounds like it could take weeks. Months, even," he said. Henry nodded eagerly in agreement.

The three of them left Reece's office with instructions to release Zoe. Jo asked Henry what he planned to do next because she said that she could see the wheels turning in his head.

"I'm going to have a talk with Maureen," he replied. "I think she might be persuaded not to be alone anymore."

Jo watched him as he walked out of the bullpen and into the hallway toward the elevators. She didn't quite understand what he meant but trusted him to do what was right. Even if it meant keeping a secret. Especially that.

Hanson cleared his throat, getting her attention. "Ya know, I admire what we're trying to do here, spare a young woman needless pain, but just how long are we gonna be able to keep this secret?" he wondered. "Even some of the best-kept secrets get uncovered."

He was right, she concluded. Even though Zoe's and Maureen's truth was nowhere near as mind blowing as Henry's and Abe's was, she hoped that it never would be revealed to Zoe. Sometimes it was easier to live with a warm, well-padded lie than with the cold, hard truth. That being said, she was very grateful that Henry had finally trusted her enough to share his secret of immortality with her. And she would leave it up to him if he chose to eventually share it with anyone else like their colleagues or her family. If need be, she would take his secret to her grave. That is, after spending the rest of her life with him.

"I'll go spring Zoe," she told Hanson, who nodded without looking up from some of his long-neglected paperwork.

Notes:

I apologize for the shortness of this update but I wanted to get something posted before my week of Wi-Fi expired. Waiting for my new Internet equipment to arrive, like hurry up and wait! Grrrr! Hope you all enjoy this latest chapter.

Information on VA hospitals in New York State found at . /locations/Brooklyn_


	8. Saving Mrs Morgan Ch 8 END

_**Henry, Jo, and Hanson left Reece's office with her instructions to release Zoe. Jo asked Henry what he planned to do next because she could see the wheels turning in his head. **_

_**"I'm going to have a talk with Maureen," he replied. Her forlorn statement came back to him. **_

_"Guess I just didn't want to be alone," a somber Maureen admitted. "Like I am now." _

_**"I think she might be persuaded not to be alone anymore," he added. **_

vvvv

Abe's Antiques, the next day, mid-afternoon ...

Abe eased down onto the settee in the living area with Fawn's and Henry's help. "Whew! Taking those stairs again took more out of me than I thought it would." He grinned up at them as if to assure them that he was fine. "This is what a few days of being lazy costs."

"Abe, you were shot and had to recuperate in the hospital," Fawn chided him. "And you're going to finish recuperating here," she firmly added. "Leave dinner to me." She pecked him on the cheek and patted Henry's arm before leaving them and entering the kitchen. Henry smiled at her and sat down next to his son.

"We're a couple of lucky guys," Abe told his father, his gaze following Fawn as she moved through the kitchen gathering all of the cooking tools and food items needed to produce a delicious meal.

"She seems to know her way around our kitchen very well," Henry noted with a sly grin, sliding his eyes over to Abe.

"Eh ... well ... yeah," Abe replied, chuckling. "She's been here before when ... lots of times! Why are you getting on me about this? Jo's been here lots of times, too," he pointed out.

"Yes, she has," Henry agreed. "And ... she knows." He tilted his head toward his son with his eyebrows raised. "When are you going to tell Fawn about me and our true relationship to each other?"

Abe's chest rose and fell as he lowered his eyes to his hands and his smile faltered. "You're enjoying this, turning the tables on me, aren't you?" Henry thought for a moment and grinned his reply, nodding.

"Guess I'm all big and brave tellin' somebody else to fess up." He looked apologetically at his father. "Now I know how you must have felt. How scared you must have been to tell Jo. Sorry, Dad." He was careful to whisper the patriarchal term so Fawn wouldn't hear it. "But I'll, I'll tell her. Soon. Don't want this to come between us like it did with ... "

"You and Maureen," Henry finished for him. Abe nodded. "Well, if it helps, I'm certain that Fawn will be believing and accepting."

Abe flashed a grin at him but quickly dropped it. "It doesn't help," he deadpanned. Henry chuckled and patted his shoulder. After a few moments, Abe asked how Maureen was doing.

"She's handling things quite well, considering." He went on to tell him how Maureen took the news of Zoe's erroneous belief that she was her granddaughter.

_"Why would Frank go to such lengths?" Maureen asked, disgusted and astonished at hearing more of her former employee's deviousness. _

_"Perhaps he thought that your grief over losing your husband, Edoardo, so soon, would lead you to - " _

_" - wanting to raise his love child?!" she loudly interrupted him. _

_Henry pursed his lips and shook his head. "His plan appeared to make sense to others," he informed her. "It included the two of you becoming man and wife - " _

_Maureen interrupted again, this time with loud laughter. "This - whole thing sounds so utterly bizarre. He must have been, must __**BE**__ totally mad." _

_"Your marriages to ... others got in his way. He was looking for the right opportunity to approach you but the longer he delayed, the more the opportunity evaded him," Henry said. "At least, that's what I believe happened." _

_She took a sip of her lemon and honey water and examined the glass. "Wish this could be a little stronger. Unfortunately, I gave up hard liquor years ago. Only an occasional glance of wine." She looked at Henry again and asked, "How deeply is Zoe involved in this?" _

_"I believe that the only way in which she is involved is that she appears to be as much a victim of his lustful conspirings as you and any of his other victims were." He explained further about how Frank and Edoardo, Jr.'s real birth mother had conspired to present the boy as Edoardo's and her offspring. _

_"I also believe he intended to blackmail you into marrying him," Henry said matter-of-factly. "And once married, the birth mother would have become expendable. She had already provided your name for the birth certificate. All he needed was to threaten you with exposure as being the boy's mother, which would have been disappointing to your fans and your record company at the time; ruining your fresh-faced, innocent image." _

_"Eddie and I were married in secret. Knowledge of that alone could have ruined my career," she said. "When my parents signed the contract with the record company in 1962, my age was pushed back three years. Our fans believed that I was only 12 when I was really 15. By 1966, I was 19 but to the public, I was still a school girl of 16." She sighed and turned to face him again, a look of melancholy on her face. "In those days, our fans were not as sophisticated or forgiving as they are today." _

_"Would you have welcomed the boy into your life?" Henry asked. _

_"I ... I don't know," she replied uncertainly. "My grief and loneliness just might have made me do that. Without the public's knowledge, mind you," she added. "Then again, I was 19 years old. Barely mature enough in my own mind to have been responsible for my own life let alone anyone else's." _

_"Zoe truly believes that you are her grandmother," Henry told her, pressing the point. "She has a younger brother but he has a different father and his birth certificate reflects that." He studied her for a moment and as difficult as it was, he continued. "Would it be so terrible to at least meet with Zoe and maybe the two of you could ... find some common ground on which to build some kind of relationship? It would break her heart to know that Frank and her real grandmother's family had lied to her all her life. And you wouldn't have to be ... alone any longer." _

_"A relationship that would be built on a lie," she pointedly told him. "I don't see how that's possible." She turned away from him. "I've already been through that." With Abe, is what she didn't say but what Henry heard anyway. _

Abe's voice snapped him back to the present. "Hmmm. Well, you gave it your best shot. Will Jo be joining us for dinner tonight?"

"No," Henry replied. "Not tonight. You and Fawn enjoy the rest of the day and evening together. Jo and I have a dinner date after work." He stood up to leave but stopped suddenly, reaching into his coat pocket. "Oh. I almost forgot." He handed Abe two tickets.

"What are these?" he asked.

"A gift ... from Ms. Delacroix," Henry replied with a broad smile and a slight bow. "Front row seats to her next performance at the Rochester Auditorium Theatre. We're all invited." Henry then bid goodbye to his son and to Fawn. Assured that Abe was in good hands, he then left the shop and returned to the morgue.

That evening, Henry and Jo enjoyed a pleasant dinner at the Barclay Hotel restaurant. They both agreed that the outing was well worth it based on the restaurant's great ambiance and meal presentations. Later on at her house, they discussed attending Maureen's upcoming performance.

"She called it a sort of pre-show," Henry told her. "To kick off her world tour."

"Will it be taped and aired later?" Jo asked, clearly excited.

"Possibly," he replied. "At any rate, I'm sure we'll all have a benjo." He chuckled at the confused look on her face.

"American English!" Jo told him, grabbing his shirt collar and jerking his face closer to hers while he laughed.

"A riotous holiday," he explained, laughing and spreading his arms out. "A noisy day in the streets."

"That's really cute what you've started to do lately," she said, pecking him on the lips. "But these lips speak only Spanglish and American English."

His gaze slowly lowered to her lips, one side of his mouth edging up into that lopsided grin of his. "Only those two languages?" he teasingly asked, lowering the register of his voice. "Not ... the language of love?" She shook her head and shrugged, her own smile pushing her cheeks out. "Well, if you would allow me," he said, pulling her closer, "I would be very happy to teach you."

"Have to warn you," Jo told him with an exaggerated pout as she ran her fingers over the lopsided part of his scruff. "There's no telling how many lessons I'll need."

"Well ... I've got time," he whispered to her right before their lips locked in a crushing kiss.

vvvv

Two weeks later, Maureen took center stage at the beautiful auditorium in Rochester, New York. It was a classic stage set up, no frills but a full band: bass, guitar, drums, piano, percussion, drums, and saxophone. A screen in the background changed throughout the performance with different light patterns. As the last living member of the girl group the Candy Canes, she showcased her talent and beauty backed up by two granddaughters and a nephew of her deceased older sisters, Nannette and Arlene. Through several wardrobe changes that included, among others, a black leather jumpsuit covered in rhinestones and a halter-top white dress with a sequined bodice, she took the audience on a walk down memory lane with the group's early hits from the 1960s. Then into the 1970s during her solo career.

A resurgence of popularity in the 1990s and one of her solo hits, "True to Me", remade by a popular girl group in 2008, accounted for the audience's makeup of grade schoolers through baby boomers. The entire audience jumped to its feet as the diva made her entrance wearing a bright green sequin gown with a green chiffon overcoat and the band went right into "Yesterday and More," her solo hit at the end of the 70s.

For the next memory, Ms. Delacroix asked the crowd, "Do you remember this song?!" As the band played, the audience screamed and rocked to "Love Is the Name of the Game," one of her top ten solo hits. She followed with "Starlight, Starbrite", a Candy Cane hit near the end of their run. Her cover of a Petula Clark song about pleading with her lover not to sleep in the subway station after they'd argued, was directed to Abe. Her eye contact with him as she introduced the song, left no doubts for him or his companions - unbeknownst to any others on or off stage - that she was using the song to share one aspect of their past relationship with each other. At the song's end, she smiled broadly, remembrance glistening in her eyes, and blew him a kiss before bowing.

The single, "Bring It Back", which had garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, got couples on their feet, dancing in the aisles. The Diva then dropped the lime green overcoat she was wearing and she sparkled as if covered in pixie dust. The crowd roared. Diva Maureen rode the song out as she shined the light on the audience.

"I can see you back there! Can you hear me?" she asked, and the crowd went wild! As the song ended, she just stood at center stage, embracing her imperial presence as the crowd screamed.

She left the stage as the song ended, but returned to introduce her band and background singers, each taking a short solo upon introduction, showcasing the phenomenal talent of her stage team. She also introduced a special guest, Zoe Tulane, referring to her as an "almost" granddaughter.

"And for those of you unfamiliar with the story," she announced, "you'll just have to buy the book!" She bowed and then exchanged hugs with a blushing Zoe.

She attempted to hold onto Zoe's hand while she performed "I Will Survive" but Zoe gently pryed their hands loose from each other and left the stage to the Diva. It was quite an appropriate ending to her show and a testament to a lifelong singing career. Then Diva Maureen and her band exited the stage expeditiously.

"She's still got it!" someone behind the seated Team Morgan concurred. "What a show!" someone to their left declared. A multitude of like concurrences rang out from the departing crowd. Before leaving themselves, Henry reminded Abe that their free tickets included a backstage pass. Abe looked at the stage and back at Fawn.

"Nah," he replied, offering his crooked arm to Fawn. "She has the friends she needs now (Zoe), and I, for one, am very happy with mine."

Notes:

Had to come back in to make a minor correction. When Jo tells Henry "English English!", I realized she should have been saying, "American English!" (see what these typing fingers can do to me?). Anyway, I also realized that Maureen is going to write a book on her recent experiences but that would also encompass a great deal of her past life. Including her marriages and especially her marriage to Abe. Oy vey!

Thank you all for riding along with me again. Hope you enjoyed it. Oh, and Abe eventually does let Fawn in but she surprises him by admitting that she had long suspected. Just as Henry had predicted, though, she is very accepting and fits in quite well with Team Morgan. Their secret is safe with her.

Zoe and Maureen do develop a strong friendship even after she finds out that Maureen is not her grandmother and spend time together whenever the Diva is in town. Since Zoe never knew her grandfather, Edoardo, Maureen helps fill in some of the holes in her family history.

And eventually Hanson, Reece, and Lucas are "let in" on Henry's secret of being an Immortal and Abe being his son after Lucas, while researching some medical history on another case, pulled up irrefutable and incontrovertible evidence of Henry having been an attending physician to some of the survivors of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.

Information on Victorian slang terms found at  
/article/53529/56-delightful-victorian-slang-terms-you-should-be-using  
Maureen's stage show was borrowed heavily from an article describing one of Diana Ross' performances (Diana Ross delivers a performance worthy of a diva supreme) Written by Robin Reese, Special to OnMilwaukee. Published July 15, 2017 at 2:56 a.m.

Reference to "Don't Sleep in the Subway" written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent and recorded by Petula Clark, for whom it was an April 1967 single release. Also, "I Will Survive". A hit song first performed by American singer Gloria Gaynor, released in October 1978. It was written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. The other song titles were made up by me.


End file.
